


Holiday Magic

by pluperfectsunrise



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alpha Severus Snape, Christmas, Falling In Love, Honorable Severus, Humor, Lots of Sex, M/M, Omega Harry Potter, Omegaverse, Post-War, Sex, Virgin Harry, slight pain play in an omegaverse context
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-06
Updated: 2019-05-15
Packaged: 2019-09-12 13:36:14
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 18
Words: 31,187
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16873851
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pluperfectsunrise/pseuds/pluperfectsunrise
Summary: To no one's surprise, Severus Snape has no particular fondness for Christmas. But when he and Harry Potter are trapped together in a sticky situation over the holidays, will he learn to embrace the Yuletide spirit after all?





	1. Silent Night

**Author's Note:**

> I decided to get into the holidays this year by writing this thing--so if you wanted some gratuitous omegaverse shenanigans for Christmas, here you go. I'll be posting a chapter every day or every few days (depending on my busy life) until we're done.
> 
> Disclaimer: Not mine. Just borrowing everyone and everything for fun.
> 
> Also, please be aware: This is rated E for a very good reason.

_Late September, 1992_

Severus Snape was patrolling the hallways long after curfew when he heard the muffled whimper.

His skin prickled, and the scent hit him next. _Omega,_ his nose told him, and then, _Child. Distressed child._

The child in question was in false heat, by the smell of it—a simulation of estrus without eggs being released that omegas experienced during early puberty. From what Severus understood, it could be very painful, with all the cramping of heat but none of the sexual aspects, including the ability to find release or satisfaction.

Omegas weren’t rare, but their parents usually chose to homeschool them until they were old enough to find mates. There was only one omega in the student population at present—and she was years past puberty.

So who was this?

He turned the corner and came to an abrupt stop, seeing a pale face and a very familiar head of unruly black curls.

Potter. Why did it always have to be Potter?

The boy was sitting in a dark alcove with his legs drawn up and his head bowed against his knees. A gray cloak that Severus recognized with a frisson of outrage was tied around his shoulders, but it had fallen open. His eyes were squeezed shut, his breathing ragged, the cuticles of his thumbs ripped and bleeding from where his fingernails had dug in.

Severus inhaled and exhaled, trying to decide how best to proceed. The arrogant little whelp was breaking curfew again. He had no respect for rules or authority, just like his father.

But he was also in considerable pain.

He hadn’t yet noticed Severus approaching. “Potter,” the professor said in a tone of warning.

To the boy’s credit, he snapped his wand into his hand faster than most adults Severus had dueled.

Severus doubted he was capable of sounding comforting at the moment, so he attempted a neutral tone. “Put that away. I’m not going to harm you.” 

“Snape.” The boy glanced into the darkness surrounding them quickly, though whether looking for allies or simply as a reflex, Severus didn’t know. His voice was low, strained. “Something’s happening to me.”

“You’re an omega.”

Potter gave no sign of recognizing the word.

“You will be able to bear children,” Severus clarified.

Potter inhaled audibly, and his forehead wrinkled in confusion. “I’ll get pregnant? But…I’m a boy.”

“Nevertheless.”

Potter continued to stare up at him through those absurd glasses, looking confused and suspicious and so damn young.

“It means that you will have certain instincts that will attempt to direct your actions. You will need to learn to recognize them for what they are and make your peace with them. Ignoring them entirely would be fruitless—but giving in to them without a struggle would make you less than yourself.”

“I don’t understand.”

Of course he didn’t. Severus sneered slightly, then smoothed it over. Antagonizing Potter was at cross-purposes to what needed to happen right now. 

“Can you walk?”

The little twit rose to his feet, then promptly swayed and started to double over in pain again.

He would have cracked his head against the stones if Severus hadn’t caught his arm in time. “It appears that you cannot,” Severus informed him curtly. “I’m going to carry you to the infirmary.”

“What? No!” The boy wrested his arm away and backed up, running into the wall. He looked like he wanted to draw his wand again, but also like he was seconds away from fainting.

Severus’s patience was fraying. “Would you rather be levitated?”

Potter bristled and glared some more, but eventually raised his arms slightly and allowed himself to be hoisted up.

Severus frowned. The brat was far too light for his age.

He shook himself and considered his next move. Potter’s nutrition was something to investigate at another time.

It was unlikely that they’d wander into anyone else at this time of night, but every portrait had eyes—and he suspected that Albus was going to say it was crucial to keep Potter’s newly discovered secondary gender a secret for as long as possible.

“I’m going to wrap this wretched garment around you,” he said, giving the edge of Potter’s—James Potter’s—invisibility cloak a tug. _And then I’m going to confiscate it_ , he added to himself, feeling far less satisfaction at the prospect than he would have expected.

“All right,” the boy muttered. 

The last thing Severus saw before he disappeared were Lily’s eyes, blinking up at him in mistrust.

Those eyes. It had been such a shock, seeing those eyes for the first time.

It was imperative that he keep Potter safe—in Lily’s memory, if not for Albus’s schemes and whatever that fucking Prophecy had meant. 

As Severus made his way down the corridor, his thoughts continued to churn. There was already far too much resting on the boy’s fragile, troublemaking shoulders—and life would be incrementally harder on Potter because he was an omega. He was going to need potions—potions to suppress his heat, potions to make him blend in with the other students without alphas being able to tell his gender by smell, as Severus had just done.

Lost in his racing thoughts, it took Severus much too long to feel the brush of a nose against his neck, to realize that the invisible child in his arms was scenting him.

It tickled.

“Potter, cease that at once,” he said in a low murmur.

The scenting stopped. “Sorry,” came the reply, muffled because of the invisibility cloak’s hood. “I didn’t mean to—I don’t know why I—”

“Instincts,” Severus said shortly. Poppy would explain it to the boy in more detail. For his part, Severus would rather swallow rusty nails than explain alpha and omega dynamics to a twelve-year-old, the child of his long-ago best friend and most hated enemy. 

Potter was silent, and Severus was grateful for it. 

As they turned into the infirmary corridor, though, Severus felt a weight descend on his shoulder, the press of a high cheekbone and the feathery tickle of messy curls against his chin. 

“Potter,” he muttered, giving the boy a small shake. But this time there was no response.

Having reached their destination, Severus pushed through the door of the infirmary and was already groping to tug the cloak off the child.

It took very little time for a sleep-rumpled Poppy Pomfrey to appear, slippers on her feet and her nightcap askew. “Severus?” she wondered, her voice tight with worry. Severus sympathized: nothing good came from being woken in the middle of the night. “What’s wrong?”

“It’s Potter,” Severus explained tersely. “He’s going into pre-estrus.”

The matron blinked once, then looked around in confusion. “Where—”

Severus had finally managed to find the tie that held the cloak in place. The garment shifted to the side, revealing his charge.

Mouth snapping closed, the infirmary matron blinked again—twice this time.

With his arms still looped around Severus’s neck and his nose buried in the crook of his professor’s throat, Potter had fallen fast asleep.


	2. Sleigh Bells Ring

_December 19, 2000_

Needless to say, if Severus was going to name everything he didn’t like about Christmas, the list would be extensive. 

The incessant singing. The trite good wishes. The requirement of proving one’s regard for others via unnecessary gifts. The gaudiness. The forced togetherness. The chaos. The glitter.

However, there was one thing he did like about the Yuletide season, Severus reflected as he made his way through the Forbidden Forest: the quiet that descended over the world with freshly fallen snow.

And another: he liked the sense of absolute relief that surged through him when the students were finally packed off on the Hogwarts Express for the break, home to their mummies and daddies and all the sticky toffee pudding they could eat.

There was only a thin layer of snow on the ground at present, but it was enough to give the forest a dormant feel, desolate but serene. The bare boughs of the trees were dark and glistening with frost. The animals were hidden in their nests and burrows. Spotting an untouched bed of sparkling snowdrops, he bent and began harvesting them, letting his hands flick through the familiar spells from muscle memory.

If he were any other man, he suspected he might be whistling as he worked.

The train had left that morning, bursting to its brassy brim with adolescent witches and wizards and all their festive cheer. And for the first time in Severus’s memory, not one single student had elected to stay at Hogwarts over the holiday break. 

What’s more, almost none of the staff were planning to remain either. Filius was spending the holidays with the goblin side of his family. Minerva was attending a nephew's wedding. Pomona was being escorted by Longbottom around the continent on a tour of regional varieties of carnivorous fungus, or something like that. Severus had tuned her out every time she started rattling on about it at staff meetings. 

And the list went on. Poppy Pomfrey had caught the mumblemumps from a student and planned to nurse herself in her little cottage in Yorkshire. Filch was taking Mrs. Norris to the seashore. Rolanda Hooch was with her latest girlfriend (who was already married, Severus happened to know) at a tawdry resort in Las Vegas.

Etcetera, etcetera, etcetera.

Even Hagrid was planning to leave the castle soon, having bashfully explained that Madame Maxime had invited him on a romantic getaway to a Swiss chateau. 

Severus hoped they had a large ski lift.

For himself, Severus was perfectly happy to have been left behind. For many years (during the war; and after the war, during the endless headache of the reconstruction), all he'd truly craved, deep down in his exhausted bones, was for the world to leave him alone. 

So the prospect of so much solitude was a pure delight. He would read all the latest potions articles and write scathing rebuttals. He would brew. He would drink whisky in the evenings by the fire, and he would _not_ be required to lead staff meetings, or review syllabi, or host tea parties for the Board of Governors, or—and this most of all—deal with masses of overly energetic, scatterbrained students who rarely gave their education even half the attention it deserved.

Exhaling, he watched the plume of his breath disappear into the white air. It would be glorious. Six days of uninterrupted privacy and peace. By far the best way to spend this saccharine holiday, in his opinion. And a fitting reward for putting up with a month of off-key caroling, not to mention those accursed sprigs of mistletoe that caused havoc among the students every year. And the tiny but vicious pixies in the tree in the Great Hall, who had already bitten eight little morons who’d tried to pet them. And the Christmas-themed Weasley products, which seemed to grow in both number and variety every year, but could always be counted on to explode.

Severus finished harvesting the last snowdrop, packing it under a careful stasis spell into the basket that was looped around his arm. Standing, he stretched the kinks out of his back, then began making his way through the trees again.

He knew all the forest paths, even when they were iced over. It didn't take him long to reach the open air and see Hogwarts looming in the distance.

That was when the prickle of foreboding ran up Severus's spine. It occurred, in fact, at the exact same moment as a shadow flitted across his body. 

A very familiar, highly aggravating sort of shadow.

Severus grimaced, then braced himself.

Because, as luck would have it, there was one little fly in the ointment of his perfect holiday plans. A thistle in the wreath, as it were. Namely, that the other member of staff—the _only_ other member of staff—who was staying at Hogwarts in the days leading up to Christmas, was—

“Potter,” Severus sighed in resignation as the newest Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher swooped down and landed just ahead.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for the kudos and lovely comments on the first chapter, friends! Drop me a line if you have thoughts :)


	3. Deep and Crisp and Even

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks so much for the kudos and encouraging comments on the last chapter! On we go.

“Headmaster.” Potter tucked his broom under one arm and offered Severus a small smile. “I was wondering if I’d see you today.”

He was tousled and red-cheeked from the wind, and his eyes were still gleaming with the exuberance of flight. He looked healthy, Severus realized. Much healthier than just a few months ago, when he’d started his first term as the new DADA professor. And far, far healthier than two and a half years ago, at the end of the war.

“Indeed,” Severus answered dryly. He cleared his throat. “Pleasant flying?” he heard himself ask, despite the fact that he hated small talk.

Potter shoved his free hand into his jacket pocket, his smile widening. “Yeah, brilliant. It’s so quiet out. I could really see all the ice gleaming from up there.”

Though Severus himself had been admiring something similar not long before, he rolled his eyes. The ice on the ground was dense and treacherous. Trust Potter to romanticize an accident waiting to happen.

“And you?” The young man gestured toward the basket that was looped over Severus’s elbow. “Did you get what you needed?”

"Yes." To his surprise, Severus found himself wanting to describe his morning's work to the whelp. He throttled the urge and began walking again.

Potter fell easily into step beside him. “Oh, good. I wouldn’t have thought you’d be able to find too many plants in this frost.”

Severus snorted. “As you ought to know, there are several magical herbs and flora that only begin blooming during the first snowfall of the year. I’m astounded you passed your Herbology NEWT.” 

Potter, Granger, and Weasley had all sat their NEWTs during the summer after the war’s end, despite the fact that none of them had finished their formal schooling at the time.

“It was a close shave,” the brat agreed affably. “I think Kingsley bribed the testers. So there’d be no chance I wouldn’t make the Auror program, you know.”

That was one thing Severus hadn’t expected about this new, mostly adult version of Potter: how easily he acknowledged the preferential treatment that had been given to him in the past.

Had been, indeed. The previous summer, the Boy Who Lived had finally been outed to the public as an omega. The press had had a field day with the exposed secret, by turns trying to rationalize Potter’s deception and taking a tone of moral outrage. And it was only six days before the _Prophet_ began to speculate that Potter’s defeat of the Dark Lord had been nothing but luck, or possibly even a hoax. 

The Ministry, of course, took the low road, sacking the boy from the Auror program as soon as complaints started pouring in. There’d even been a militant wing of protesters who wanted Potter’s wand snapped.

They’d been quickly silenced by Potter’s small but staunch group of supporters, and even the general public seemed to think that was going too far. But the threat was in the air—and while Granger and Weasley had both been vocal to the media about the injustice the boy hero was facing, said hero himself was remaining absolutely silent on the matter. He’d given one disastrous initial interview, then disappeared.

When weeks had rolled by without Potter showing his face, Severus had decided to go looking for him. Call it curiosity—or call it habit, considering the fact that he’d invested nearly a decade into Potter’s wellbeing. 

He had found him in a nondescript Muggle cafe, a cup of coffee at one elbow, frowning between three textbooks that were open on the table in front of him.

“Snape?” he’d asked when Severus made himself known. The young man had stared at him in surprise, but with far less hostility than Severus would have expected.

And yet, perhaps not. He’d had little contact with Potter since the war—except when the boy had spoken with unaccustomed eloquence on Severus’s behalf during his trial.

“Mr. Potter,” he replied in a measured tone. He didn’t wait for an invitation to sit down. 

Potter’s eyes had flicked over him quickly, from the dark slacks to the sleek coat. Severus stifled the urge to snap that of course he owned Muggle attire, instead looking at the titles of his companion’s books. _Chemistry for Beginners_ , said one. Another was _Literary Traditions Through the Ages._

“As refreshing as it is to see you applying yourself to study—what the devil do you think you’re doing?” he wondered, leveling one of his best glares on the boy.

At that point, a waitress had interrupted them to offer Potter a refill and ask if Severus wanted to order anything. He did not.

“NEWTs don’t translate,” Potter finally answered when they were alone again, lifting his refreshed mug with both hands to take a sip. His fingers were calloused and chapped. The steam from the coffee was fogging his glasses.

“What?” Severus demanded, genuinely bewildered.

Potter sat back and sighed, stretching his long legs out under the table between them. “A-Levels, Professor. I’ve got to take them if I’m to get into a Muggle university.” He tilted his head. “I don’t suppose you’d give me a letter of reference?”

“No.”

Potter snorted and straightened again. He didn’t look particularly surprised. “Well, ta anyway.”

“No, I will not aid you in such an absurd endeavor,” Severus clarified, looking down his nose at the young man. “Unless you’ve suddenly discovered a passion for—” He lifted the third book to see the spine. “Further and Additional Maths?”

“Ha.” Potter leaned an elbow on the table and scrubbed a hand through his hair. His face had hardened. “I don’t know if you’ve noticed, Professor, but the wizarding world doesn’t seem to want me in it at the moment.”

Severus lifted an unimpressed brow. The wizarding world hadn’t wanted him in it since the day he was born. “So?”

It was raining outside, and Potter’s fringe had stuck to his forehead, the shoulders of his jacket still damp. The little idiot hadn’t even bothered to use a drying charm.

“So I’m going to build a life for myself in whatever way I can,” he answered, lifting his chin. 

His shoulders were square, his gaze challenging and direct. “And I mean a good life—one where I’m not just some prick’s broodmare, like everyone seems to think I should become, now that they know about—” He gestured down at himself, his body. “And if I have to live as a Muggle to make that happen, then that’s the way it is.” 

Looking across at his young companion, Severus thought suddenly of his mother, unable to find work because of her secondary gender and cast off from her family and wizarding Britain as a whole for mating with a beta (and a Muggle one, at that).

Severus knew that there was no love lost between himself and the Boy Who Lived—but the idea of Potter living without magic was unconscionable.

And at some point in the last nine years, saving him had become a fact of life. What difference would once more make?

He cleared his throat. “The Defense Against the Dark Arts position, as you might be aware, has been vacant for the last two years. The curse on it was broken with the Dark Lord’s death, but the applicants have been distinctly underwhelming, and I’ve had no wish to subject the children to underqualified buffoons.”

He paused, meeting Potter’s eyes. “You, however—much as it pains me to admit it—had the highest Defense score on your NEWTs in the school’s history. You also successfully completed your Auror training and worked in the field for a year.”

Potter’s expression had gradually transformed during this speech. “So, you’re saying I’m not…underqualified?” he finally asked, looking torn between suspicion and hope.

Severus glanced away from the boy toward the front of the cafe, where rain was pounding against the windows.

“It would appear I am.”

Potter bit his lower lip. “Hogwarts? You’d let me work at Hogwarts?” 

Just by his tone, Severus could tell how much the offer meant to him. But Potter suddenly shook his head. “I won’t live on charity.”

Severus tapped his fingers atop the table impatiently. “Trust me. There’s nothing about asking you to devote the vast majority of your waking hours to cornering and forcibly enlightening scores of little hellions for the salary we offer that could possibly—” Severus took a breath. “—count as charity.”

Potter had regarded him quietly for a few seconds after that. And it had struck Severus, all of a sudden, that he wasn’t dealing with a temperamental sixteen-year-old anymore. At some point, Potter had learned to think before he spoke. Perhaps he’d even finished growing up.

“Then I’ll negotiate for a raise,” he finally answered, crossing his arms.

Severus wanted to groan. Just because Potter was an adult didn’t mean he couldn’t drive him spare. “Insufferable brat,” he settled for saying.

Potter hadn’t smiled, but his eyes were laughing. 

“I do try.”

~

Now, in the present, Severus let the wave of memory recede. 

They’d reached the castle. Severus held open the door, and they both stomped the snow from their feet. In the close confines of the entranceway, Severus could suddenly smell his companion’s fresh, tart scent: pine trees and snow; winter berries; bergamot orange; hot mulled wine; and a musk underneath it all that was pure young man as much as it was pure young omega.

It was no longer the thin scent of a prepubescent child; nor was it the burnt-edged blandness that Potter had exuded while he was taking potions to hide his secondary gender. Instead, his scent was fully developed and as distinct as a fingerprint. Severus had never known another omega to have one that was so sharp and soft all at once.

Severus stepped back and away, breathing deeply of the not-Potter air so he could regain his equilibrium.

“I will wish you good afternoon,” he clipped out. “There will be no need to take your meals in the Great Hall over the next few days. If you do, you will find yourself dining alone.” 

“Oh.” Potter paused in stripping off his gloves, unwinding his scarf. “That’s not a problem. I wasn’t planning to leave my rooms much.” 

Was that a blush rising on his cheeks? No, it had to be residual redness from the wind. 

“As you like, then.” That dismissal should be obvious enough. Severus spun on one heel and began striding away.

Potter’s voice stopped him in his tracks.

“Professor, wait!” The boy jogged a few steps to catch up with him. “I was hoping to speak with you about something. It’s important.”

Severus frowned. “Can it not wait until after the holidays?”

Potter shifted on his feet, looking unaccustomedly shy all of a sudden. Nervous. “Er, no. It really can’t.”

Severus sighed internally. It seemed his long-coveted peace and quiet would have to be postponed for another hour while he dealt with whatever problem Potter had gotten himself into now. 

“My office, then.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Title is from Good King Wenceslas. I have to say, that's the sexiest description of snow I've ever heard ;)


	4. The Most Wonderful Time of the Year

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello again! Thanks so much to everyone whose been reading, and especially the ones who've left me notes.
> 
> So I'm not totally happy with this chapter, but it's getting posted in the interest of moving on.

Severus’s office was spare and dignified. Except for the four crowded bookcases, he’d kept signs of his personal interests to a minimum.

“No tree?” Potter asked as he followed Severus past the walls of dozing portraits.

Severus snorted. Was Potter really surprised?

Before he could formulate a properly scathing reply, an elderly but jovial voice rang out from the most recent portrait on the wall. “Yes, it’s a bit of a shame to see these rooms so bare this time of year. Hello, Harry.”

Severus snorted a second time. Albus hadn’t spoken to him in weeks—but of course the old coot would pipe up as soon as Potter appeared on the scene.

“Hello, sir,” Potter answered politely, approaching the portrait with his hands in his jacket pockets. “It’s good to see you. Happy Christmas.”

“And to you as well, my boy. I hope you have a very happy Christmas indeed.” Sitting up straighter at his painted desk, the portrait of the former headmaster glanced between the two of them with that damnable twinkle in his eyes. “Alas, Severus has never been as fond of Christmas as one would hope.”

“My entire castle is full of holly and tinsel and silver bells,” Severus replied waspishly, making his way behind his desk and beginning to sort the end-of-term paperwork scattered across it into neat stacks. “Kindly allow me _one_ sanctuary where I don’t have to hear about goodwill towards man everywhere I turn.”

Potter coughed, raising a hand to cover what was obviously a grin. Severus settled one of his milder glares on the brat—which sharpened and was redirected as soon as Albus’s portrait added in a falsetto whisper, “But I do believe he secretly has a soft spot for caroling.”

“Oh, for—don’t think I won’t wash you in turpentine, old man.”

Albus chuckled, undeterred, and Potter said, “Perhaps we shouldn't test him, sir. We wouldn’t want to spoil Professor Snape’s enjoyment.” But he glanced toward Severus and met his eyes, as if sharing the joke.

He’d been doing that more and more lately. Whenever something particularly absurd happened at a staff meeting or among the students, Potter would glance toward Severus with a slight quirk to his lips, almost as if to commiserate. And as time went on, Severus had been finding it more and more difficult to return these looks with a glare or stony impassivity. Instead, he realized he was waiting for them. Not looking forward to them, for pity’s sake, just…waiting.

“How have you been faring on the other side of the lectern, my boy?” the portrait asked, jarring Severus’s thoughts back to the present.

Potter grinned again in response, not bothering to hide it this time. “Well enough, I think,” he answered softly. He shot another amused glance toward Severus. “Though the Headmaster might say otherwise.”

Severus rolled his eyes, nudging the ceramic container of a volatile potion into the square of sunlight on the left corner of his desk. He'd brewed it the night before, and the next requirement was that it sit in earthenware in natural light for seven days. 

“Mr. Potter thus far appears to be sufficient for the position,” he clipped out. He did hate to be predictable, after all. “For a more detailed analysis, he will need to wait for my formal review in January.”

It was a measure of how much his opinion of Potter had changed of late that he wasn’t even particularly surprised that the boy had turned out to be good at his job. According to all reports, his lessons were fair, thoughtful, and interesting. By and large, the students seemed to like him. Even the Slytherins. 

Several of the older alpha students had railed against learning from an omega in his first few months of teaching, of course. As always, Potter had opted for the direct approach, offering to duel anyone who wanted to challenge him in front of the class. 

“It’s a teaching opportunity,” he’d told Severus over breakfast one morning, eating a scone with a far-too-innocent expression.

Severus had left him to it. The duels would never be much of a contest, after all—and perhaps the little buggers really would learn something from watching Defense in action.

Now, he glanced up from his desk to see Potter looking rather flummoxed. “Oh, don’t act as if I’ve crowned you Queen of the Maypole,” Severus muttered stiffly. 

Taking a deep breath, he excused himself to make them both a cup of tea. Much as he wanted Potter gone as soon as possible, his instincts wouldn’t allow him to host an omega in what was essentially his home without offering some form of nourishment.

He could hear Potter continuing to chat with Albus’s portrait in the background as he set the water to boiling in the self-heating kettle he kept for these situations, but he ignored this in favor of mentally berating himself. He’d been too cordial with the brat. He would need to find a way to redraw the distance between them. Grateful as he was that Potter had managed to end the war, Severus had no wish to be the latest acquisition to the champion’s fan club—or what was left of it, in any case.

When Severus returned, the young man had perched himself on the visitor’s side of Severus’s desk. Severus handed him the tea unceremoniously and glowered until Potter got the hint and lowered himself to the chair, then situated himself opposite the boy and steepled his fingertips under his chin. 

“Now, Mr. Potter, we’ve wasted enough time." He narrowed his eyes. "Please explain to me what you so desperately wished to discuss.”

“Oh, right.” Meeting his eyes, Potter ran a hand through his hair and squared his shoulders, obviously girding himself for something. His throat bobbed. “First off, I wanted to—”

He stopped mid-sentence and closed his eyes for a second, letting out a puff of breath as a furrow appeared on his forehead.

Severus leaned forward. What was wrong with the boy? “Potter, are you ill?”

“Um, no.” The young man opened his eyes again, offering a weak smile. “It’s nothing. Sorry. I must have just...flown too hard just now.” Glancing away from Severus with what was definitely a flush rising on his cheeks this time, he set his teacup on the edge of the desk and reached for a nearby ceramic pot.

What happened next seemed to occur in slow motion.

“Is this the sugar?” Potter asked, lifting the pot in one hand.

“Potter, no—” Severus began, lunging forward to summon the object from Potter’s grasp.

He heard glass shattering.

Potter jerked backward at Severus’s sudden movement.

The pot slipped from his fingers. It fell to the desk and cracked into shards, its murky contents splattering across both of their torsos.

“You little fool,” Severus hissed as soon as the silence had settled again. “ _What have you done?_ ”

Potter looked down at the mess, then back up at Severus. “Oh, shit. Sorry, Professor.” He shook his head in obvious chagrin, then drew his wand. “But I’ll clean it up. It’s just a bit of spilled potion.”

“That ‘bit of spilled potion,’ as you so quaintly put it—” Severus could hear his voice shake. “—is a highly potent experimental brew that strips all who come into contact with it of their ability to perform magic. It also acts on the surrounding environment to _seal doors._ The effects can last anywhere from hours _up to a week._ ”

Their gazes met. Potter’s nostrils flared, and he blanched. He flicked his wand in a quick spell, then paled even further when nothing happened.

“Oh fuck,” he said, summarizing Severus’s thoughts precisely.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Lol, hand-wavey plot device!
> 
> Thanks for reading, peeps.


	5. Don We Now Our Gay Apparel

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for the kudos and lovely comments, folks.

The door at the bottom of the stairs was sealed shut, and the gargoyle wouldn’t respond to knocking or banging or shouting.

The windows were spelled against intrusion, which translated to preventing decampment as well.

The house elves were perfectly capable of popping into Severus’s office, but not of Side-Alonging either of the two men out. When they tried, Severus felt as if he’d been slammed into a wall. They tried repeatedly. It was not helping his mood.

“What about the Floo?” Potter demanded. He was looking increasingly desperate as the reality of their captivity took shape.

“Closed for repairs,” Severus answered tersely. It had seemed like a good idea to schedule maintenance over the holiday—but the road to hell was paved with good intentions, as one of Severus's paternal aunts had been fond of informing him as a child. 

Of course, she'd used it as an excuse to avoid giving to charity, so he'd never considered her a particularly reliable source.

Potter paced back and forth, his useless wand still clenched in his hand. “Okay. Well, if the Floo’s shut, maybe we can climb out the chimney,” he offered seriously.

Severus felt his mouth opening and closing in indignation. _That_ was Potter's best idea? "Do I look like Father Christmas to you?" he deadpanned acidly.

“Right, wouldn’t fit.” The brat's shoulders rose and fell. Though his feet were planted squarely, he seemed to be swaying on them slightly—and his face was becoming more and more waxen as time went on. “Surely there’s an antidote?” he pled, catching Severus's gaze in entreaty.

The potion in question had been invented recently by a colleague who had sent Severus the recipe to test. She'd included very stringent warnings with her instructions—but none of her cautionary advice had accounted for the walking calamity that was Harry Potter. 

While Severus did feel a vindictive sort of satisfaction that the boy understood the gravity of what he’d done, he didn’t want Potter to faint or vomit on his rug. “It’s experimental,” he said in a much gentler tone that he’d originally been planning. “No antidote has been invented yet.”

Potter swore to himself and began pacing again. And once again, Severus noticed his companion’s strong scent, clean and crisp and pure. As with all omegas, it had strengthened with anxiety, rolling off the boy's skin in waves.

Severus closed his eyes and tried to breathe shallowly. Focus.

To force himself to reorient his thoughts, he gripped the handle of his wand and flicked surreptitiously through a variety of spells. None of them worked, of course. The power of this particular potion was too potent and volatile at this stage in its development.

With this miserable failure, Severus finally allowed himself to slump into his chair. 

There were two silver linings in the dark thundercloud of their current situation, he supposed. First, it didn’t precisely feel like his magic was extinguished, but rather as if it were banked, like a fire smoldering in coals. It felt similar, in fact, to the magical depletion that followed a battle or major spellcasting. After he’d cast Avada Kedavra on Albus Dumbledore and escaped Hogwarts, he’d barely been able to light a Lumos for a week.

The second positive aspect of their imprisonment—if he were forcing himself to look for one—was that the door to his personal quarters had been open a hair when the potion spilled, so the spell had left it alone. Or perhaps the elixir was capable of distinguishing between exit routes and doors that only expanded a prison's size.

In any case, at least he and Potter wouldn’t be trapped in a single room together for however long this sodding thing lasted. His quarters weren’t particularly large, but he had a bedroom, a sitting room, a loo, and a small office. He and the brat would be able to escape each other's company and exist separately, to a certain extent. It would be difficult, but they’d doubtless manage to survive.

And it wasn’t as if Potter was the worst person to be trapped with, a small voice admitted in a long-ignored corner of Severus's mind. His eyes flicked back to the younger man of their own volition. His personality might be perpetually irritating, but at least the view would be nice.

“While this situation is abysmal, I _suppose_ there are certain ways in which it could be worse,” Severus said aloud, to throw his distraught companion a bone.

Potter paused in his pacing and turned to face Severus slowly. “That’s just it, Professor,” he said in a low voice that caught on the last word. “It is worse.”

His eyes met Severus’s, as deep and shadowed behind his glasses as the center of the Forbidden Forest. “I mean, the thing is—I’m about to, um, go into…” 

Potter took a deep breath, looking as if he were gathering the courage to face the hangman—and Severus suddenly realized what he was going to say; what the thickness of the boy's scent in the air meant; how tightly the knot of his fate had just been tied. 

“I’m about to go into heat.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Raise your hands, everyone who saw that coming.
> 
> If you're wondering what Harry wanted to talk to Sev about originally (now that it's clear he wasn't planning to ask for Sev's help with his heat), don't worry. All will be revealed.


	6. Mr. Green Christmas

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you my dears for your lovely comments on the last chapter!

Severus felt the blood drain from his face. No, he thought in desperate denial. No no no no.

But the evidence to the contrary was right under his nose. Potter’s scent was rich and subtle and enticing, as inviting as cinnamon and treacle, as invigorating as the snap in the air during the first winter frost. The only reason Severus hadn’t recognized it for what it was until now was that he’d been willfully blind.

“When?” Severus hissed, barely recognizing his own voice. 

Potter regarded him from the other side of his desk for a few beats, the fabric of his jacket tautening with each of his breaths. “Later tonight,” he finally answered. “Or maybe tomorrow morning.”

Then there was still time to prevent disaster. Surging to his feet, Severus lunged for the cabinet of potions he kept in the corner of the office—dignity be damned—and began sifting through the vials rapidly.

Skin Strengthener.

Snot Solvent.

The slot for Suppressant (Omega) was empty.

Shaking, Severus barely quashed the urge to pull the entire cabinet down to the floor. “Why the sodding fuck am I out of heat suppressant?” he heard himself snarling.

“I’m sorry, Severus, but I believe you gave the last batch to that third year Hufflepuff who presented last week,” Albus’s portrait supplied helpfully in the ensuing silence. “You hadn’t found the time to rebrew it yet, my boy.”

Albus was right, damn him. The blood roared in Severus’s ears, and he stared down at the carpet, barely even caring that he was still on his knees.

A pair of scuffed trainers stepped into his line of vision. “Breathe, Snape,” a voice said softly. “You need to breathe.”

When he finally allowed himself to look up at Potter again, the boy was crouching above him and wearing the most unreadable expression that Severus had ever seen on his face. 

“It only lasts a few days, Professor,” Potter said quietly, holding his eyes. “I won’t ask you to…do anything…to me.”

“You have no idea what you’re talking about,” Severus answered before he could think better of it. “In a matter of hours, you’ll be begging me for my knot.”

Potter inhaled sharply.

Pinching the bridge of his nose, Severus rose to his feet again and took a step back. He focused on drawing in deep, even breaths. “I apologize. That was inappropriate.”

Straightening as well, Potter shook his head sharply and waved a hand in dismissal. “I don’t care about whether you're appropriate or not.” His eyes were wide. “You…you think I’ll lose it like that?”

“Haven’t you had a heat before?” Severus demanded miserably, retreating behind his desk again. If he was sitting and there was a large wooden furnishing between them, maybe it would be easier to approach this situation with a shred of diplomacy.

Potter was silent.

Snapping his gaze back up to him and reading the answer on his face, Severus fought the urge to groan aloud.

“I always had your potions to prevent it!”

“Even the final year of the war?”

Still standing and crossing his arms over his chest, the boy offered a half-smile, though there was very little humor in his expression. “I raided the stock in the infirmary before we left for the summer at the end of sixth year. I have a heat once every three months, so it was enough to get by.”

Severus resisted the urge to throttle his companion—barely. “Then why, for fuck's sake, didn’t you take anything this time?”

Potter’s eyes narrowed. He didn’t look as if he were about to apologize. “I wanted to experience it," he answered abruptly. "Heat. What it would feel like without the suppressants.” 

He let out a huff, ran a hand through his perpetually messy curls. “Everyone’s been making such a big deal about me being an omega. I just wanted to have a better idea of what they meant.”

On a good day, Severus would likely have acknowledged that he couldn’t fault the boy for wanting to understand more about his own biology. This, however, was not a good day. “The world at large knows very little about it, Mr. Potter,” he spat out. “As you ought to be aware, the idle gossip of simpletons is _not_ a reliable font of knowledge.”

Potter’s brows rose. “Which is why I wanted firsthand experience,” he answered slowly, spreading his hands.

When had the hotheaded youth who’d been both the bane and purpose of Severus’s existence for so long become so damn reasonable? “Undergoing a heat alone is excruciating,” he informed the brat coldly, rallying himself. “The cramping and faintness that you’re obviously feeling at the moment will only strengthen as the hours pass, and even more so if you remain unsatisfied. No omega willingly undergoes a heat _by themselves._ ”

Now Potter’s jaw was setting with a very familiar stubbornness. “I’m sure I’ve been through worse,” he answered, looking away.

The boy was probably right—but Salazar, what did it matter? There was far, far more to heat than enduring pain. Heat, or an omega’s peak period of ovulation, was about the need to mate taking precedence over all other drives and desires. And the heat of an unbound omega like Potter would only be stronger, more all-consuming, more undeniable than for someone who was more experienced or had found a mate.

And to an alpha—any alpha—an omega’s heat pheromones were an overpowering aphrodisiac. Severus had always prided himself on being the master of his instincts—or at least not their slave. But even he had never been near an omega in heat without succumbing to the inevitable and offering himself to fulfill their needs for the duration, as it were. 

Taking a step away from the boy, Severus focused on reining in his temper. As much as he wanted to punish Potter for the untenable position he was in, Severus knew that the boy didn’t truly deserve it. And Severus was now bound to protect him twice over, wasn't he? Once by his promise to do so in Lily’s memory, and once by his position as an alpha with a young, vulnerable omega on his hands.

Ignoring the creaking of his knees, he knelt by his potions cabinet once again and sifted quickly through the topmost shelf. “Take this, at least,” he said when he found a light blue vial.

“What is it?”

“A contraceptive.”

Potter looked surprised, then rebellious—which told Severus more about how far along he was into heat than even his scent had done. Thankfully, his fractious expression quickly melted without either of them commenting on it. Potter nodded once, then accepted the potion and drank it down.

After Potter had swallowed every drop, Severus exhaled. If the worst should happen, at the very least there would be no ill-begotten pregnancy to upend their lives afterwards.

But Potter was looking at him again with that unreadable expression from earlier. Except maybe it wasn’t unreadable so much as unfamiliar, Severus realized with a prickling up his spine, something he couldn’t remember ever seeing directed at himself. If he didn't know better, he would say the boy looked almost…wistful. 

He took a step back before Severus caught more than a glimpse of this, however. “I’ll just go check the door again, shall I?” His voice was stiff, and he left before Severus could reply.

When Potter had gone, Severus climbed slowly back to his feet. His gut instincts, honed by an unpleasant childhood and two decades as a spy, were telling him that something was going on here below the surface, something that Potter didn’t want to reveal. 

Before he could follow this train of thought any further, however, his analysis was interrupted by a low voice from the wall. “You know, my boy, I’ve always hoped that you and Harry would come to an accord, learn to see eye to eye,” Albus said gravely, leaning forward on his painted desk. “Maybe this is just ticket to help that along.”

For fuck’s sake. The portrait was making it sound as if heat was some social tea, not days of non-stop, nearly mindless sex. 

“Shut up, Albus,” Severus snapped. “Or I really _will_ wash you in turpentine.”

“Oh dear.” Albus settled back and began puttering with the bric-a-brac on his desk, then seemed to decide that the best course of action was to feign sleep. 

Severus continued glowering at the canvas long after it started to snore.

~

Hagrid, the Keeper of the Keys and Care of Magical Creatures teacher for Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, trundled through the castle’s gates with a valise in one hand and his wand in the other. His scarf, red and gold in honor of the late Headmaster, caught on a crossbeam as he passed; he unwound it and wrapped it around his neck again with care, humming all the while at the prospect of seeing his magnificent Olympe soon. 

The gates swung closed behind him. He took out his largest key and locked them up tight.

The friendly half-giant likely had no clue that this entire proceeding was witnessed by two sets of eyes from the Headmaster’s tower.

A voice spoke quietly from near Severus’s left shoulder. “Nothing’s going to happen tonight that you—or I—don’t want, sir. I promise.”

Even the “sir”, even rarer in its appearance now than when Potter was a student, couldn’t incite Severus to turn and face the boy. Facing him would only bring his maddening scent to the forefront of Severus’s awareness, not to mention forcing Severus to see the bravery and compassion in those beautiful eyes. 

“You cannot possibly promise that.”

Potter was silent for a time—but when he answered again, his voice was low and firm. “Actually, I can.”

“How?”

He heard his companion shift on his feet. “Because I know myself, and I know you. We do what’s necessary, yeah? And we’re more than just what our hormones say we should be. Isn’t that what you tried to tell me, that night I presented when I was twelve?”

Severus felt his brow crease. “Something like that, yes.” He remembered a young boy scenting him before falling asleep in his arms. He hadn’t been aware Potter recalled much of that particular encounter.

The young man reached up as if to put a hand on his shoulder, then seemed to think better of it. Severus could hear his breathing picking up, probably as another wave of cramping hit.

“So we’ll be fine,” Potter said after he’d composed himself again.

Severus knew that the brat had no real grounds for this conviction—but perhaps he was right. Potter would have his heat, and Severus would simply…ignore it. He was a man of impeccable self-control, after all. He’d been tested by far more grueling ordeals than this.

Hagrid disappeared down the lane to Hogsmeade, leaving large, dark footprints in the frosty earth as he went.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Title is from the Heat Miser's song in the classic xmas special The Year Without a Santa Claus. Because, you, know, tasteless jokes.


	7. We've Been Good, But We Can't Last

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I could probably edit this chapter more, but I'm trying to be less of a perfectionist with this story, so here ya go. FYI: we've got the start of the adult content coming up.
> 
> Thanks so much for the amazing feedback on this fic so far! You guys are absolutely lovely.

Letting Potter into his personal quarters had been unavoidable. They would both be more comfortable in a space that was designed to be lived in; and Potter could take Severus’s bedroom and lock the door, when the time came.

For now, they were sharing Severus’s small sitting room in an uneasy peace. It was mid-afternoon. It had been three hours since the potion spilled. 

When Severus had inherited the headmaster's quarters from Albus Dumbledore three and a half years ago, he’d completely redecorated, mostly for the sake of his sanity. He couldn’t sleep somewhere where the smell of lemon drops would haunt his dreams, after all. He'd changed the carpets (now green and black) and the curtains (black and silver); and since he'd never grown particularly attached to any of the furnishings in his previous quarters in the dungeons, he'd brought several of the larger pieces from Spinner's End (the breakfast table; the armchair in the corner; his bed). 

Potter, therefore, was currently on the threadbare sofa that had once been cherished by Severus’s mother, stretched out towards the fire that was crackling in the hearth and reading a book he’d plucked from one of Severus’s many shelves. Severus, meanwhile, was sitting at his personal writing desk, reading the latest issue of Potions Quarterly. Attempting to read the latest issue of Potions Quarterly. Turning the pages of the latest issue of Potions Quarterly at random intervals without reading a single fucking word.

Potter’s shirt was riding up, exposing a sliver of toned stomach with each breath.

"Hah," he said, the third huff of laughter in as many minutes.

Severus put down his quill, resisting the urge to snap it. “Something amusing, Mr. Potter?” he demanded acidly.

The boy started slightly, then leaned up on one elbow and peered at him. “It’s what you’ve written in the margins,” he explained, pointing to a block of Severus’s spidery handwriting on the edge of the page. “You’re calling the author an idiot for using bobotuber pus to cure dandruff.” Voice softening, he added, “Reminds me of sixth year.”

Severus wasn't sure whether the brat was referring to the bobotuber pus or the dandruff, until he remembered Draco, bleeding on the floor of a girls' bathroom. It felt like a lifetime ago, but Severus mustered a glare. “Of course. You used my additions to the textbook to cheat.”

Potter blinked at him, then shook his head vehemently. “No, that wasn't it." His nose wrinkled. "Well, sort of—but that wasn't the real reason I liked it. Your book, I mean."

Severus frowned at him.

“It was funny, Snape,” Potter added, as if that was a perfectly obvious explanation. 

He tilted his head back against the arm of the sofa and stared up at the ceiling, voice taking a tone of confession. “I used to stay up late, flipping through it to read all the snarky things you'd written. It made me feel…less alone, I suppose.”

“How could you possibly have spent any time in your student days feeling alone, Potter?” Severus demanded when he'd found his voice again. “Granger and Weasley followed so closely in your footsteps that none of you could have sneezed without the others catching Dragon Pox.”

The younger man's lips lifted in a crooked smile. “You’re not wrong,” he agreed, casting an amused glance in Severus's direction. Sobering, he added, “But they both had happy childhoods with loving families, and neither of them has a secondary gender, and nobody expected them to become murderers or die trying. So there were some things they just couldn’t understand. Not for lack of effort, mind you.”

“Hm.”

Not seeming to mind this non-reaction, Potter laced his fingers behind his head and stared up at the ceiling again for a time. 

“It was just obvious that the Prince—the Half-Blood Prince—was funny and clever, but also lonely, and dealing with things he didn’t know how to handle,” he eventually added. He pierced Severus with the green of his gaze once more. “Was I wrong?”

Severus shifted uncomfortably. He'd given the brat his memories; Potter knew the answer.

Pointedly, he returned his attention to his potions articles, dipping his quill to begin to make notes. Eventually, he heard Potter pick up the book again.

The silence resumed.

~

Two more hours went by. In the frozen and remote world outside, darkness fell. 

In Severus’s sitting room, the only sound was the crackle of the logs in the fire. Potter had stopped turning pages long ago.

Severus didn’t even need to examine the boy covertly, now. Potter's eyes were closed, his curls stuck to his forehead with sweat. Sometimes, his hands would clench and unclench, his hips twitching minutely. His full lips were parted around panting breaths that stretched the thin cotton of his shirt across his chest.

There was no denying that Potter was objectively attractive, Severus thought distantly around the buzzing in his ears. Beautiful, even. Captivating, certainly, with his veiled power and slender strength and the spark in those eyes. Severus had known that for far more years than he cared to admit.

And yes, he smelled more intoxicating than any omega Severus had ever encountered. Other omegas’ heat scents had always struck Severus as too cloying, sugar and honey to cover something medicinal. Not Potter’s. The scent of Potter’s fertility was rich and earthy and absolutely, infuriatingly _right_.

Severus took a deep breath—which was a bad idea, as it only brought the boy’s sweet musk to the forefront of his awareness once more. Potter's scent had been growing more potent all evening, for all that he'd remained surprisingly rational throughout the process. Now, however, Severus could smell that the first true surge of heat had overtaken him. His body was readying itself to be knotted and bred and bitten. One of them needed to leave.

But Severus wasn’t leaving. He was standing and drawing nearer to the sofa and the hearth, laying his hands against the back of the cushion above Potter's head. And the boy's scent must have garbled something deep in Severus's brain, because the question that came to his lips was, “Potter, are you a virgin?”

The young man sucked in a breath at the sound of his voice, then looked up, reflections of the fire dancing in each lens of his glasses. He seemed to be considering Severus.

It was an invasive question. He'd be well within his rights to tell Severus to piss off.

But he didn't. “Ginny and I fooled around some,” he finally answered, his voice husky and catching. “But I never…”

“Became aroused?” Severus finished when he let the sentence hang.

“Got hard or wet,” Potter agreed quietly.

Salazar, hearing him say the words... Self-control, Severus reminded himself. He was supposed to be fucking good at it.

Potter was still watching him, waiting for an answer. Severus cleared his throat. “Then why, pray tell, didn’t you find someone else who did...incite a physical response?”

The boy sat up higher on the sofa. “Er, because I’m old-fashioned?”

When Severus merely lifted an eyebrow, Potter huffed and ran a hand through his hair. “I didn’t just want to have a bunch of one-offs with hot blokes I don't know,” he explained shortly. “I wanted someone who I lo—liked, at the very least. As a person.”

Of course; Potter was a Gryffindor. More than that, he was a romantic, likely invested in the idea of total intimacy between lovers. 

Which was yet another reason for Severus to clutch tightly on the fraying ends of his restraint. Potter might respect him as a colleague now and even be grateful for the sanctuary Severus had given him at the school—but Severus doubted that anyone had liked him _as a person_ since he was fifteen.

Potter’s next words, however, derailed this train of thought entirely.

“You know," he added in a dreamy tone, his lashes lowering, "every once in a while in sixth year, I’d sort of hope the Prince was an alpha.” He bit his lower lip, leaving it red and moist. “I’d think about what would happen if we met.”

Oh, for... He should reprimand the brat. No, he should get out of Potter's presence immediately. “What did you imagine he would do?” Severus heard himself asking instead as he shifted still closer, his normally silky voice transformed to a low rasp. _Self-control,_ he reminded himself desperately.

Potter exhaled, his gaze skittering away. “Kissing, mostly.” The flush on his cheeks deepened. "I didn't really know what else to think about at the time."

Severus cleared his throat again, partially in a snort of laughter. “Then you were the only sixteen-year-old in this school who fantasized solely about kissing."

Potter's lips twisted in response. “Yeah, you're probably right.” Drawing his legs up to his chest, the younger man leaned his cheek against his knees. “I know—" A shiver wracked its way through him; he paused until it had passed. "I know it was stupid. They were pretty good kisses, though,” he added, almost too low to hear.

Hormones were clouding the air between them. It was too much; it wasn’t enough. “Potter…” Severus croaked, not knowing how he intended to finish the thought. He swayed forward.

Lips parting in surprise at whatever he saw on Severus's face, Potter sat up toward him with his eyes wide, his nostrils flaring; and Severus found himself bending, closing the distance between them as if drawn by gravity.

As a child, Severus had been too inquisitive and sharp-eyed for others’ comfort. But he’d never imagined that he would kiss Harry Potter because of a sudden, incontestable desire to find out how the boy would taste.

What he discovered was that Potter tasted tart and full and sweet—sweeter than Severus had ever thought possible. Severus broke the kiss, thinking _self-control self-control self-control_ and fiercely beginning to Occlude against his inner alpha's surge of triumph—but Potter dashed this attempt by following him, clambering over the side of the sofa until their lips met once again.

Feeling light-headed with the rush of blood to his groin, Severus twisted the boy and backed him up until he was slammed against the wall, never mind that several books fell from the nearest bookcase with the impact.

Potter's arms locked around his neck, his mouth opening against Severus's with a gasp. Severus understood the feeling. He was drowning in Potter, pressing even more firmly into him, so that the tremors seizing the younger man shuddered their way through Severus as well.

He could take Potter here, Severus thought as he dragged his lips down the boy's jawline. They'd only need to roll his denims off—or rip them, if that took too long. And then it would be easy, so easy to hitch Potter’s legs around his waist and push inside his slickness and heat. Reveling in the image, Severus tightened his grip on the brat’s hips into a vise and bent to lave his tongue against Potter's nipples through his shirt, first one, then the other.

Since he was also growling as he did this, it took him a moment to realize when the moans coming from above his head had become words, a babbled stream of words.

“Oh god, yes—I mean no—ahh—Snape—you can’t—you don’t want me. I promised I wouldn’t—oh god—do this—to you—oh! You don’t want me. You need to leave—”

When Severus managed to pull back, he saw that there was a high, bright flush on Potter's cheeks, his lips glistening and chafed, his eyes transformed to dizzying green pools. And despite all this—despite the fact that Potter looked like an alpha's most private daydream and was obviously half out of his mind with heat hormones—he’d remembered to warn Severus away.

And he was right. Severus couldn’t do this. He _couldn’t._

Breaking himself from the younger man's grasp abruptly, he left him against the wall and fled.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry. But Sev wouldn't be himself if he made things easy, and Harry did have a promise to keep.
> 
> Title is from the Alvin and the Chipmunks Christmas song, of course ;)


	8. Westward Leading, Still Proceeding

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just a lil one today. Thanks for reading!

As soon as Severus had escaped to his outer office once again and slammed the door shut behind him, his head began to clear.

What had he just done?

Or, more accurately, what had he just _not_ done?

He hadn’t been exaggerating when he’d told Potter that he would find it excruciating to endure heat alone. And Severus had simply left the boy to that, when close contact with an alpha would have only made his physical symptoms stronger.

With his back still to the door, Severus sank to the ground and buried his head in his hands.

Heat was meant to be a time of intense sexual satisfaction for an omega—but when he or she didn’t have a partner on hand, it transformed to a period of torture. That was why so many omegas were bonded when they were still teenagers, often as young as fifteen. Severus had vivid memories from childhood of trying to coax his mother to eat tins of soup while she curled around herself in misery for days, since Tobias Snape had thought that leaving her alone during heat was a fitting punishment for being such an unnatural creature to begin with.

And Severus was doing something similar, to a person who should have been under his protection.

With any other omega, he wouldn’t have hesitated. But this was Harry bloody Potter. The hero of the wizarding world, for all that he’d fallen out of fashion at present. The Boy Who Lived (twice). The child who’d been both the thorn in his side and his raison d’etre for seven years. Lily's son, for fuck's sake. A boy who Severus had treated with unflinching cruelty for the vast majority of their association. 

Potter seemed to have forgiven him now, but what did that matter? The past wasn’t erased simply because they rarely spoke of it.

Nothing about this situation was fair—to Severus, or to Potter himself. Brat as he was, he shouldn’t be in a position where he was forced to lose his virginity to a man who’d once reviled him, a bitter, rather despicable man who’d managed to wreck everything precious and good that he’d ever been given in his life. 

Of course, most omegas were more than happy to lose their virginity, treating it as a painful state that was best shed immediately. He didn’t know why Potter had to be different.

But he did, actually. It was because of Severus himself, and Albus, and everyone else who had thrown themselves in front of the young man over the years to protect him from his innate nature. Where other omegas had spent years by the time they were twenty learning to manage their fluctuating libidos and biological imperatives, Potter’s attention had been directed on little beyond becoming a weapon to defeat the Dark Lord.

So, in some ways, Severus had no one to blame for the present situation but himself.

He felt a bitter swell of laughter trying to escape his throat. He swallowed it back.

He thought of Lily, who’d always been his template for everything that was good and right in the world. What would she hate him more for: deflowering her son, or leaving him to suffer alone?

But it didn’t matter what Lily would think, really, because he'd already made up his mind. 

Taking a deep breath, Severus rose stiffly to his feet and began strengthening the Occlumency shields that he hadn’t needed for two years. Whatever happened, he wouldn’t lose control again.

Girding himself and letting his expression fall into a blank mask, he slipped through the door to his quarters once more.


	9. Oh Ho the Mistletoe

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Merry Christmas and happy holidays, all! Here, have some shameless smut.

When Severus re-entered his chambers, Potter was on the sofa once again, curled up with his knees to his chest and his eyes squeezed shut. The way he was curving into himself and the expression of pure defeat on his face took years from his appearance. His fly was also undone, his right arm sandwiched between his body and the couch cushions, his hand disappearing under the back waistband of his denims.

Kneeling next to him, Severus laid a hand against the boy’s fevered brow.

Potter’s eyes opened behind his glasses. “Snape?” he whispered.

Severus didn't know why, but hearing his name in Potter’s voice this time was like an electric shock running up his spine. “Yes,” he agreed quietly.

“I thought that you were going to stay…” Trailing off, Potter inhaled and exhaled slowly. “…stay in your office.”

“…I was.” 

Severus realized that he was breathing just as slowly and consciously as his companion. He swallowed. “You’re entering heat proper now,” he added in the most soothing tone he could muster. “You’re going to need penetration.”

Potter turned his face into the cushion below him as he gave a strangled laugh. “Yeah, I’d figured—figured that one out myself,” came the muffled reply.

“Tell me what you’re feeling," Severus ordered when nothing else was forthcoming.

The boy shifted his hips minutely and lifted his face. The muscles in the arm that was disappearing into his denims tightened. “I just feel so empty. I’ve never…”

“Shhh,” Severus murmured when Potter's shoulders hitched with a soundless sob.

“I’ve never felt so empty,” he repeated, brokenly.

In the past, Severus had spent considerable energy wishing that Potter would be cowed by him, or at the very least become as miserable because of his impetuousness and arrogance as Severus had been at the time. Now that he finally saw what that looked like, however, he realized that it was a hollow victory. Sour.

Potter shouldn’t sound like that. Something was deeply, desperately wrong in the universe if Potter sounded like that.

Leaning forward, Severus scented along the boy’s neck, knowing that the presence of alpha pheremones would help calm him. At the same time, he traced a hand down Potter’s right arm, carefully joining the one that the omega had stuffed under his loosened waistband.

When he was touching bare skin, he slipped his fingertips down the soft curve of Potter’s arse, nudging them against where two of the boy’s own fingers were disappearing into his body. Sensing his intentions, Potter pulled his own hand out and let Severus’s take its place.

Salazar, he was tight. 

The only sounds were their inhaled and exhaled breaths and the crackling of the fire, which had burned low to cast them in glazed amber and shadows. The silence helped Severus distance himself from what his hands were doing, from the boy's maddening wetness and sweetness and constriction and heat.

Fighting off a shiver, Severus began working his fingers into Potter's opening gently, scissoring and circling, pulling out every once in a while to rub the boy's natural lubricant around his entrance. “Oh,” Potter sighed when Severus pushed a third finger into him. At the same time, the older man carefully reached his free hand down through the boy's unzipped fly to pull out the erection that had begun tenting the front of his pants.

Oh indeed.

For all that it was much larger than most omega cocks, it looked somehow delicate in Severus's palm, a wild thing caught in his hand. It was also straining toward him, as warm as a furnace. Leaning forward, Severus lowered his head and carefully sucked the tip into his mouth, where it could scald his tongue.

"Oh god," Potter moaned, sitting up now. Severus flicked his eyes up long enough to see that he was gaping down at him, gaze dizzy and shocked.

Satisfied with the sight, Severus laved the head gently again, then ground his fingers as deeply into the boy as he could while simultaneously sliding all the way down Potter's beautiful little prick until its head bumped into the back of his throat. 

Potter gurgled and gasped above him, so Severus crooked his fingers, slid his mouth upward, and did it again.

It had been many years since Severus had done this, but it wasn't a skill that one tended to forget. He couldn't move his hand very well from this angle, so he focused on his mouth, taking long, languorous pulls in combination with flicking the underside of Potter's shaft with his tongue. Soon, he had the omega gasping for air, his fingers clenched around Severus's shoulders tightly enough to bruise. He bent himself almost in half to press his crown of curls against Severus’s head, whispered, "Close," and then cried out sharply and came.

Easy, Severus thought. But of course it was easy for Potter to climax, this first time: his body had been begging for this for hours.

With the taste of omega release flooding his mouth and the tantalizing knowledge of exactly how tightly Potter's internal muscles had clamped around his fingers during orgasm, Severus knew that his own needs could no longer be ignored. “Turn,” he couldn't keep himself from growling once he'd swallowed and pulled his fingers from the boy.

Even more slack-jawed now, Potter stared down at him for a few seconds, then scrambled to obey. 

When the omega was on his knees leaning against the back of the sofa, Severus pulled down Potter's denims and pants the rest of the way to expose the glorious swell of his arse, letting his eyes linger and feast on it. The sight was even more appetizing because a trail of Potter’s lubricant was dripping its way down onto the backs of his small testicles, the moisture that Severus had spread gleaming invitingly in a large smear around his crease.

Standing again, Severus quickly unbuttoned and shed his robes. Opening his trousers, he finally brought out his own swollen length, groaning with the relief of stroking it. He was so hard that the skin of his cock was shiny, so sensitive that just the touch of his hand almost brought him to climax by itself.

Panting, Severus wrapped his free arm around Potter's torso from behind, then lined himself up carefully with the boy's entrance. He pressed against it, waiting for the resistance to give. "You want this?" he rasped.

Potter twisted to stare at him again, his beautiful eyes slightly wild. "Do I--? Oh bloody fuck, yes."

Well, that seemed clear. Severus hummed in approval and began to push in.

“Oh god,” Potter said, widening his stance. “Oh god…”

Severus watched himself disappear within the younger man’s body slowly, first stretching him with the bulbous head of his prick, then going for depth. Centimeter by centimeter, his length was swallowed up by Potter's tight channel. "Bear down," Severus whispered into the boy's ear when he was two-thirds of the way in and it felt like he might get stuck. Compliant, Potter arched his back to push himself against Severus, bowing his head and pressing his forehead into the top of the sofa's back cushion as he worked. 

When every last inch of Severus’s length was finally buried in the warm constriction, Potter whined and wiggled slightly. “I can feel you in my abdomen,” he said breathlessly. "Oh god, if you knot--"

"When I knot," Severus corrected. Grunting, he spread the younger man’s arse cheeks in both hands and managed to urge himself in still further. If he was going to fuck Harry Potter, the boy should be able to feel him _everywhere._

Severus could tell by Potter’s scent that he liked it, being skewered by Severus's full length. This was what his body was craving, what would bring him peace as well as pleasure. It didn't hurt to see the way he was beginning to slide himself up and down on Severus's cock, though, or how he was moaning as he pressed the palm of one hand against his own renewed erection.

Severus began to thrust in earnest.

His way was eased considerably by how wet Potter was, leaving Severus's length slick and gleaming whenever it emerged. The sight made him clench his hands tightly enough on Potter's buttocks to leave red marks, yanking the brat's hips up as his thrusts grew hard enough to slap their skin together. And when this made Potter let out a litany of harsh little whimpers, the sound only drove Severus to take him more thoroughly and with greater devotion to the task.

All too soon, he could feel the spongy area of his knot starting to swell near the base of his cock. He'd need to get it inside Potter before it got much larger and wouldn't fit.

Rocking himself back and forth, he leaned forward to lick at the scent glands on Potter's neck, whispered, "Brace yourself," then pushed his knot into the boy in a single surge.

"Ah!" Potter yelped--and then he was spasming and coming again, releasing his thin, infertile omega ejaculate all over Severus's mother's sofa. Meanwhile, his arse clenched so tightly around Severus that the older man felt as if it was trying to milk the answering orgasm from his length.

It worked. For Severus, coming was both searing agony and blinding bliss. He couldn't breathe. He couldn't see. All he could hear was the thunder of his heart.

When he regained awareness, his knot had swelled to its full size, and Potter's internal muscles were locked around him and the seed he'd released. There was no way they'd be breaking free of each other anytime soon.

In a jumble of limbs, they managed to slide down together so that they were both stretched across the sofa, with Potter's front to the back cushions and Severus spooned up behind him. Since Severus had no idea was to do with his arm, he rested in lightly over the omega's midsection.

"Are you gonna bite me?" Potter mumbled between heaving breaths.

A bonding bite on the scent gland at the nape of Potter's neck would link them inextricably, making Potter his mate until one of them died. At this point in the proceedings, the alpha in Severus's hindbrain would have liked nothing better. The man as a whole, however, knew exactly what an awful idea that was. "No."

"Oh." Reaching back, the boy gripped Severus's forearm. "I'm sorry," he slurred softly. "I know you never would have chosen this."

Severus gave a faint eye roll. "Hush," he ordered. Right now, Potter needed to focus on himself and his needs, not Severus's.

Contrary as always, however, the boy soon added, “But I think your cushion’s going to stain. M'sorry about that, too."

Severus could think of far worse things than a permanent Potter-shaped stain on his sofa, he realized. He’d probably have to keep himself from licking it, though.

"Stop apologizing, foolish boy," he grunted harshly.

Potter shifted against where their bodies were still joined. "'Kay," he agreed, not seeming to take offense at Severus's tone. And soon enough, he was lulled by the hormones racing through his blood now that he'd been knotted into a deep and heavy sleep.

When his knot finally shrank, Severus pulled out and cleaned himself with a sleeve of his discarded robes. Looking down as he did the same for Potter, he realized for the first time that the little twit's boxers were Christmas colors, with dancing mistletoe sprigs stitched into the piebald red and green squares.

He's certainly kissed some of what lay beneath them, he thought with a wince and a smirk.

Since Potter was no longer a malnourished twelve-year-old, there was no way Severus could carry him to a proper place to sleep. Sighing, he rescued the boy's glasses from where they'd fallen between the cushions, covered him with a quilt, and went to bed. 

It was going to be a long heat. He'd need to rest when he could.


	10. A Three-Decker Sauerkraut and Toadstool Sandwich

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So it's after Christmas, and we haven't finished yet. Oh well. I always figured ending by the 25th would be a long shot.
> 
> Thanks so much for the great comments on the last chapter and the kudos, friends!

And so, Severus found himself having rather a lot of sex. 

It began two hours after he finally made it to sleep, which was one hour after he went to bed. As he lay cold and alone between his familiar sheets, his thoughts had kept straying back to the aggravating young man who was currently drooling on his sofa. Absurd as it was in the present situation, his instincts were screaming at him to return to the omega he'd just mated before some other alpha stole him away. 

After he'd finally achieved an uneasy slumber, he awoke to that same young man slipping onto the mattress next to him, reaching for Severus clumsily with obvious desperation.

Talking to the boy would do little when he was in this state, so Severus remained silent and gave him what he needed again: a vigorous pounding with a swollen cock. Potter curled atop Severus for the duration, moaning and resting his forehead against the older man's nightshirt-covered chest. After being knotted, Potter fell asleep easily once more, only to wake him up an hour and a half later for another round.

By dawn, Severus was exhausted. After seeing to Potter’s needs for the fourth time that night, he ignored the birdsong that was filtering through the window above his bed and dropped into a heavy sleep with his knot still lodged in the boy’s delectable arse.

When he awoke next, his bedroom was bright with the full light of morning, and he was alone again. Briefly, he wondered if the entire interlude had been some sort of feverish dream. But no, Potter had left his delicious scent behind on the tangled sheets and pillows, not to mention several patches of dried ejaculate. And besides, Severus’s body wouldn’t feel so well-used from just a fantasy.

Before Severus could rise in search of the wayward omega, the toilet flushed, and Potter appeared in the doorway. He was dressed in yesterday’s clothes again, his glasses crooked on his nose but present, which they hadn’t been since the evening before. A wave of his delicious scent suddenly reached Severus's nostrils, and Severus strengthened his Occlumency shields to keep himself from grabbing the boy and dragging him back to bed.

“Hi,” the younger man said softly, dropping his chin and turning bright red with his gaze fell on where Severus’s nightshirt had rucked up to expose his cock.

“Potter,” Severus managed to croak. His throat felt like sandpaper. “It’s rather late to be miss-ish, don’t you think?” he asked waspishly.

“Well, I didn’t really get a good look last night,” the boy explained, biting his lower lip. Gaze still riveted, he took a step closer.

Severus pulled the duvet over his hips.

Blinking as if coming out of a trance, the boy shook his head, the blush renewing itself. “Right,” he said. “Um, can I—?” He gestured at the edge of the bed.

Was the boy going to spend the entirety of his heat fluctuating between acting on desperate need and standing on ceremony like a shy virgin? And was Severus's bed not good enough for him, all of a sudden? “For Merlin’s sake, Potter, you spent half the night here," the older man snapped. "And my genitalia has been inside your genitalia four times now—which will probably become five before the hour is up. Do attempt to get over yourself.”

The boy's eyes narrowed. “Pot, kettle, Professor,” he answered softly, crossing his arms over his chest. “You’re still calling me Potter.”

That was hardly the same thing.

“Sorry,” the brat added shortly when Severus didn't respond except to glare. He finally sat on the edge of the bed—gingerly, Severus noticed, but that could have been for a number of reasons. 

Potter took a deep breath. “I know this mess is my fault. I've got no right to...to ask anything more of you than you're already giving.” He paused, scrubbing a hand through curls that were even more unruly than usual. "But let me make something clear: I don't want you here if you hate it. I don't need you to make sacrifices for me again." His gaze was direct, his voice low and firm.

Severus's nostrils flared. Did the little twit think it would be so easy for Severus to abandon him, now that they'd properly begun? 

To his annoyance, Severus was the one who broke the eye contact first. "I'm not leaving," he answered flatly, looking down and barely keeping himself from telling Potter to stop being such a sodding Gryffindor all the time.

He knew he was being harsh with the boy. Potter was likely feeling emotionally compromised after losing his virginity the night before in such an abrupt fashion to a man who had once been among his most hated enemies. Again, Severus fought against the desire to pull the brat into his arms, scent him, knot him once more as a form of comfort and reassurance. Images and half-memories from the night before rose unbidden in his mind: how the globes of Potter’s pert arse cheeks had jiggled as he thrust, how the boy’s skin was so fair that a red imprint of Severus's hands would linger after each squeeze. How Potter's entrance could stretch around his girth every time and still be so tight.

Severus Occluded fiercely against the thoughts.

Unwittingly, the brat himself aided him in the effort. He'd leaned back on one arm and was giving Severus that guarded, considering, almost disappointed look that Severus ought to be growing used to—but his shoulders had lowered a bit. “So, what happened last night—that’s the sort of thing I can expect for the next few days?” he asked in a more neutral tone.

The change of topic was forced, but Severus saw no reason to protest it. “If we don’t starve to death," he replied tartly.

“Oh." Potter shot him a chagrined glance. “Yeah, I forgot to mention—the elves brought breakfast. I already ate.” He grimaced. “The cramping makes it hard to sleep for long, and I didn’t want to wake you once you were finally out.”

Severus’s stomach chose that moment to give a highly articulate rumble. He felt like he could eat an erumpent.

“That will pass after the first day,” he answered absently, regarding the boy's concern about the cramping. As long as Potter continued to be knotted regularly, that was.

Rising to his feet with all the dignity due to the youngest headmaster in Hogwarts' history and a recipient of an Order of Merlin, First Class, he collected a fresh set of robes from his armoire and draped them over one arm. He would dress in the bathroom instead of under the boy's watchful gaze, he decided. 

As he was approaching the bedroom doorway, however, Potter spoke again. “And, um, you should know, the elves also brought some of my things. From my rooms.”

The vagueness of this statement made Severus frown. If Potter meant that the house elves had brought him a change of clothes, that would be useful. If he was referring to Quidditch memorabilia, much less so.

He pushed through the door.

His entire sitting room was awash in Christmas decorations. Stockings on the mantle; a small fir tree in the corner by the bookcases; twinkling fairy lights wrapped around the boughs and strung along the walls, though they had to be running on some kind of spell, not electricity.

“I really like Christmas,” his companion explained, rising again and coming to stand at Severus's shoulder and not even bothering to sound apologetic.

On the bright side, Potter hadn’t been lying about the food. The elves had been generous, bringing a medley of calorie-dense dishes that didn't require heating charms and would do for both breakfast and lunch.

Ignoring the invasion of festivity in what had once been his last sanctuary against holiday chaos, Severus decided he didn't care about getting dressed after all and stalked to the table to start putting together a sandwich—rye bread, roast beef, pickles, cheese. He’d need something that would give him lasting energy for when Potter required his attentions again.

“Just don’t expect me to fill your stocking,” he finally answered, taking a bite and chewing slowly.

Potter coughed into one hand and flushed again. Severus absolutely did _not_ find it endearing. 

“Er…right.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Title is from "You're a Mean One, Mr. Grinch", as Severus is being a bit of a grinch in this chapter. But people don't automatically get along just because they've had hot sex, after all.


	11. Many Times, Many Ways

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks so much for the lovely comments and kudos on the last chapter! Sorry it took me a bit longer to post this one. I had a hellish week, and my head was in no place for writing for most of it. But everything's taken a turn for the better now.

Potter went into heat on the evening of the 18th. Therefore, Severus expected the 19th and 20th to pass in a swell of time with no edges, a haze of fucking and sleeping and eating and fucking again.

And that was true, in a way; but in reality, the time was mostly spent studying the tangled nest of contradictions that was Harry Potter.

He was quiet.

“Is it too much?”

Red-faced from exertion and with his curls plastered to his forehead where it pressed into the tiles of the shower wall, Potter shook his head.

“It’s what you need?”

A lip bite and a nod this time.

With the shower spray pounding against his back, Severus pushed himself deeper into Potter's body and held on tight.

~

He was loud.

“Harder—harder—oh god—please, harder—it feels so good—please—yesss…”

Crockery was smashed all over the floor, the remains of the uneaten meal strewn over the carpet; the last remaining plate on the table fell. 

From where the boy's legs were locked around his waist as the older man ground into him, Severus gave what he could reach of Potter’s arse a few spanks. He hadn’t finished his vegetables, after all.

~

He was bold.

“What in Merlin’s name do you think you’re doing?” Severus sputtered after a moment of sheer silence, taking in the tantalizing sight of Potter stretched out on the sofa by the roaring fire, wearing nothing but a red Christmas hat and long striped stockings.

“Embracing the holiday spirit?” Potter asked, green eyes wide in a parody of innocence. He had a bowl of buttered chestnuts in front of him and was licking each with a deft tongue before popping it in his mouth. His free hand was leisurely stroking himself. Nestled in its thatch of dark hair, his hard cock bobbed in agreement.

Potter ended up on his front under the tree, his arse in the air as Severus pounded into him again from behind. A few ornaments got smashed, and they were picking pine needles off of awkward places on their bodies for hours. And the tree definitely had a crooked slant to it after that that not even elf magic could fix.

It was worth it, though. Severus hadn't felt so kindly disposed toward Christmas decorations in years.

~

He was bashful.

“Snape—could you tell me, um, why there’s, er, fluid leaking from my nipples?”

Severus, who'd turned his back on his companion after they'd come apart from their last coupling and had been attempting to sleep despite the fact that it was only mid-afternoon, snapped his gaze to the nipples in question with alacrity.

The bright little peaks were taut and swollen--and yes, twin amber trails were dripping down the smooth plane of Potter's stomach and abdomen.

"When did this start?" he rasped.

"Few hours ago, I think." Potter did that nose scrunching thing which Severus had almost managed to convince himself he didn't find adorable. "It all sort of blurs, so I can't say exactly. What is it?"

“Aestus lactea.”

When the boy only looked blank, Severus added, “Heat milk, Potter.” And the fact that it was appearing _now_ of all times indicated that they weren't nearly as far through Potter's heat as Severus had believed.

Potter looked down at himself and swiped a hand through the honey-gold nectar that was leaking down his chest, then held his fingers up to examine them. The scrunch of his nose only grew scrunchier. “I’ve never heard of it," he said doubtfully.

Severus repressed an eye roll. Had Potter bothered to learn nothing about his own gender over the years?

“Not all omegas produce it. In fact, it’s very rare.” Severus himself had only been with one other omega who did so—and even then, it had been in a much smaller quantity than what was currently visible. “And for those that do, it only appears during a true heat and in the presence of an alpha.”

“But…why would I need to…?” Potter coughed into the hand that wasn't wet. “Lactate? At the moment? I don’t have a baby.”

“Its purpose is to entice your partner, not to suckle young. I doubt that the content is highly nutritious."

The boy blinked at Severus, looking both disturbed and intrigued by this information. “So...are you feeling…enticed?” 

Of course he was.

“No,” he answered brusquely.

He couldn’t quite say why, but the idea of tasting the omega's heat milk seemed too intimate, somehow. More so than anything they’d done thus far, odd as that might seem. After all, he hadn’t even kissed Potter since the night the brat first went into heat.

Potter was obviously disappointed with this answer. Too bad. He knew full well what kind of man Severus was, that they were here because of absurd circumstances, not choice. 

Severus turned his back again and pretended to sleep until slumber finally claimed him for real.

~

It was true that almost nothing that Severus had seen of Harry Potter since his return to Hogwarts had been what he'd expected, both now that they were trapped together during heat and earlier, in the months of Potter's first term.

Potter was far quieter than Severus remembered, almost soft-spoken. He was respectful, even if he liked to be cheeky about it. He made jokes at his own expense. He did not seek attention unnecessarily. He was self-sufficient and self-contained. 

He’d also developed tact, as evidenced by the fact that, for all the breakfasts and dinners together, the hours spent reviewing Potter’s lesson plans—he’d never once, not _once_ asked about Lily.

For a while after he'd hired Potter for the DADA position, Severus had wondered if dying was what had changed Potter so much from the arrogant, impetuous little fool he'd been as a student to this aggravatingly bearable person.

And then, one day, Severus had realized with a sickening lurch that no, Potter wasn't the one who'd changed: instead, that honor likely belonged to Severus himself.

~

He was highly resistant to Severus’s efforts to distract him from his current train of thought.

“Was something unsatisfactory in my performance?” the older man demanded when he regained enough awareness after his most recent climax to notice Potter frowning down at him abstractedly.

“I’ve never heard of anything like this potion before,” the boy explained, as if he hadn't just splattered his come all over Severus's chest and didn't currently have a knot wedged up his bum.

Severus had thought he'd done well enough in that last bout to render Potter incoherent, and it was galling to learn the exact opposite to be true. "I told you it was experimental," he pointed out.

“Yeah. It’s just…” Potter chewed his lower lip, which started glistening invitingly, then waved a hand at the two of them and their surroundings. “This, all this, is too much of an effect. It’s against the laws of magic. It’s out of proportion.”

“Since when have you become an expert in magical theory?”

Potter shifted his weight on Severus's hips and raised his eyebrows. “I started reading it when you offered me this position. I spend several nights a week looking at texts to see if I can learn anything useful for teaching the students,” he answered quietly.

This time, Severus did roll his eyes. “Who knew that the Savior had such a pitiful social life," he grunted. Why did Potter have to be so sincere all the time?

The boy's lips thinned. “You’re one to talk, Professor," he replied with a far more neutral tone than most Gryffindors could manage.

So they were back to Professor again. Severus found himself irrationally missing the _Snape_ , although it wasn't remotely a title of respect.

“Yes, but I never pretended to be anything but a misanthrope," he answered in the same tone. "You, on the other hand, have graced the cover of Witch Weekly four times.”

Potter huffed. “Take out a subscription, do you?” he challenged lightly, then shook his head. “That was before everyone found out I was an omega. You know I’ve fallen from grace.”

Despite himself, Severus tightened the hand that had been resting loosely against Potter's right hip. “Your friends, then. They haven’t abandoned you.”

“No." The boy smiled faintly. "But they all have their own lives. Ron’s still an Auror, Hermione’s got her plan for changing the Ministry from within. Neville’s doing his apprenticeship, plus helping Hannah Abbot run the Leaky. Luna’s off on a quest to find the Blithering Humdinger, or something like that. And Ginny—” He exhaled, slowly. “—Ginny says that seeing me is too painful right now. I’ve got plenty of time for my godson Teddy. And I spent half of Saturdays with Ron and Hermione and have dinner at the Burrow on Tuesdays.”

Potter’s breathing had picked up again, rapid and uneven. Severus held the boy's eyes and took the time to consider this outburst from all angles. "This is not what you wanted from life," he eventually surmised.

The young man blinked and let out a humorless laugh, gazing toward the wall. “Fuck if I know," he answered after another pause, redirecting his attention back to Severus again. "There was a time when all I wanted from life was not to be locked in a cupboard every night.”

A prickle of unease went up Severus’s spine.

“My relatives,” Potter explained in a low voice, seeing the older man’s questioning look. “The ones who raised me. They didn’t like me much. Well, all wizards, but mostly me.”

“Potter…” 

Severus's knot had finally deflated. He tightened his hand on Potter's hip again, and the boy lifted himself off.

He collapsed on the bed beside Severus, pulled the sheet over himself and rolled onto his stomach so that all that was visible was a slender but strong back and his mop of dark curls.

And why did that make Severus's mouth go dry? “Petunia was always a shrew," he finished, to keep himself from saying something even more foolish.

No response.

“Would you like me to offer to kill anyone who hurt you?” he added idly.

Potter let out a sound that was rather like a squawk, then arched up from the pillow to look at him. “You don’t do anything by halves, do you?” he wondered after staring at Severus for a time.

“What would be the purpose of only killing someone halfway?” Severus asked, steepling his fingertips under his chin.

“I can’t tell if you’re joking or not.”

One corner of Severus’s lips twitched.

“Oh. You _are_.” When Potter smiled, it lit his whole face. Leaning forward suddenly, he placed a warm and soft kiss against Severus's cheek.

Severus wasn’t supposed to want him, to think he was beautiful, to admire his good humor and easy confidence and kindness and passion. It would be better for everyone—Potter included, or perhaps Potter especially—if Severus simply remained oblivious to his charms.

Severus realized that his hands were shaking. They only shook harder when Potter dropped his chin and tentatively started rubbing his nose at the base of Severus’s throat, nuzzling lightly.

From long ago, Severus remembered the feathery tickle of this particular omega’s curls against his jaw. He carefully lowered his hands onto Potter’s shoulders, and the shaking stopped.


	12. God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for all the wonderful support! Sorry this was slow to reach you. I've been swamped.

It was the night of the twenty-first, the longest and darkest night of the year. They were spooned up together with the chill in the air, despite Severus's best efforts to maintain the implicit boundary down the middle of the bed.

Potter was fast asleep in his arms, but Severus was finding the oblivion of slumber much more elusive. He was thinking of an odd conversation they’d had earlier that day.

It had happened when they’d been sitting together in the personal office attached to Severus’s quarters, which was much smaller and had far more windows than the official Headmaster’s office. Potter was sitting on one of the window seats with his chin resting on his knees, wearing mismatched socks and a jumper with an H knitted on the front in red. Instead of looking out at the school grounds, he was staring at nothing with a frown wrinkling his forehead. 

“I just don’t understand why you would invent a potion that’s so bloody dangerous,” he told Severus, apropos of nothing. "I mean, it does have the potential to make prisons more humane without Dementors—but it could also revolutionize magical warfare."

Sitting at his writing desk, Severus put down the quill he’d been using to mark up an article on alternative uses for erumpent horn powder. Potter wasn't wrong.

“I did not invent the potion,” he explained dryly. “I am reviewing the recipe for a colleague.” 

Unfortunately, this only made Potter’s frown deepen. “What colleague?”

“A Frenchwoman. Genevieve le Rochet.” 

To Severus's surprise, Potter obviously recognized the name. “The omega?” he asked, his eyebrows rising.

Severus lifted a brow of his own and leaned back in his chair. “Her secondary gender is hardly relevant to her work.”

The boy was quiet for a few seconds, then countered, “But it is, actually. I’ve heard about how she’s struggled to be recognized by the Potions Guild over there, how she campaigns for omega rights. She’s supposed to be brilliant.” His lips quirked. “Also gorgeous. She’s got all that red hair…” 

Stopping abruptly, Potter squinted at Severus with a sudden mulish expression. 

“You know her well?” 

What was bothering the aggravating child now? Severus drummed his fingers against the edge of his desk impatiently. “We’ve had a congenial relationship for many years. We were the two youngest potions masters in Europe for a time, after all,” he answered.

His contact with Genevieve had ceased during the final years of the war, but she’d been one of the first to congratulate him after his exoneration. And their correspondence had been able to grow much warmer since then. Genevieve had sought his opinion on several facets of her ongoing research recently, most notably the potion that had landed himself and Potter in this mess.

To thank him for his help, she'd even sent him a Christmas present that year: a vial of freshly brewed Felix Felicis. Grateful as he was for the gift, Severus suspected it would just gather dust in his cabinet. He preferred to make his own luck.

“Have you helped her through a heat?” Potter asked abruptly, managing to utterly derail Severus’s train of thought. 

Only many years of Occlumency training kept Severus from showing his surprise. The boy's behavior began to rearrange itself in his mind. Could Potter possibly be jealous? Severus had seen the emotion too many times among the students not to recognize it now, though of course it had never been directed at himself before. How…strange.

“I have not spent my life being celibate," he answered slowly after weighing possible responses. Potter had to realize that he had no claim on Severus’s past or future, just as Severus had no claim on him. "But no. Miss le Rochet and I are professional colleagues and occasional rivals, nothing more.” 

In truth, the vast majority of the women and men he’d bedded had been arranged through establishments that helped omegas find alphas to spend heat with who could be trusted not to force a bonding bite. And those encounters had left Severus cold, for the most part. Not in the midst of it, but afterwards, when the intimacy that had sprung up between himself and his partners proved to be nothing but an illusion caused by increased hormone production and days spent speaking in short sentences, which could hide all manner of idiocy for a short time.

As always, however, Potter was proving to be the exception to Severus’s rule. And he wanted to say it was because of the boy’s resemblance to Lily. Twisted as that would be, he’d prefer it to the truth, which was that it was the young man himself who had become the object of Severus’s fascination, who occupied his thoughts as thoroughly as he was occupying his quarters and his bed.

Exhaling, Severus added, "Genevieve is of your same opinion, regarding the potion. She sent me the recipe to ask whether I thought she should patent it or simply burn her notes and forget the experiment entirely.”

“Oh.” Potter nodded, his expression becoming hard and business-like, the face of a former Auror. "And?" 

“And I’ll be advising the latter, obviously.”

Potter held Severus's eyes, as if gauging his sincerity; when Severus apparently passed the test, a tease of a smile appeared on his lips. “Okay. Guess I won’t have to report this to the Ministry.”

Severus knew his cue. “Brat," he’d replied, rolling his eyes and redirecting his attention to his potions journal once again.

Now, tangled together in bed with Potter asleep in his arms, he finally relinquished his hold on the younger man and shifted himself to the other side of the mattress. Potter's breathing hitched briefly as the warmth left, then evened out again; and Severus ignored how much he wanted to return to the omega’s side until he finally fell asleep.

~

When the Dark Lord had set Nagini on Severus in the Shrieking Shack, he'd felt little beyond relief that he'd finally reached the ending of his miserable life story, bitter as that ending had turned out to be.

Despite this, he'd been revived from the edge of oblivion by a soft trill, the balm of phoenix tears washing over his wound. And that had been a blessing in more ways than one, as it turned out—because whenever he’d thought of death since then, his mind had filled with beautiful song.

Now, however, he was bleeding out on the filthy floor of the Shack again with no Fawkes to save him this time. He was alone and delirious with the crushing weight of his failure to deliver Albus's last message, the information that would turn the tide of the war. 

And then there was the sudden miracle of the boy himself appearing, his pale, dirty, blood-streaked face, his haunted green eyes. Lily's eyes, but they would never be Lily's eyes. And was this how Lily would have looked at Severus as he died, all shock and mistrust and sickened pity?

Then Severus felt a lurch in his gut like the fishhook pull of Apparition—and suddenly the boy was the one bleeding out on the floor of the Shack with a gaping wound in his neck, Severus hovering uselessly above him. Severus pressed his hands to Potter's throat, but his lifeblood spilled over them in a red river. His vibrant eyes lost focus, his mouth working soundlessly until his body, once so aggravatingly restless and intractable in class, finally went still—just as Lily had been so cold and still in Severus's arms nineteen years ago. 

Severus wanted to scream the worst things he could say at the brat, claw at him until he was alive again. No, _no_. Potter wasn’t supposed to die, no matter what Albus had said. Severus had worked too fucking hard to see that that didn't happen. He'd kill Albus again to stop it. He'd do anything. He'd dig a grave in the earth with his bare hands and crawl inside to take Potter's place.

But suddenly he was being pulled upward, away, elsewhere; the sight of the Shack’s leaning walls and Potter’s corpse blurred and dissolved. “Sev’rus,” a steady voice was saying. “Severus, shhh, it’s all right.” 

His eyes opened to almost total darkness. A weight was pressed along his side, a warm hand in his hair. 

"Where—”

The hand in Severus's hair began stroking gently. The press of heat against the length of his side shifted, lifted to hover over him. “Headmaster’s tower," said the voice, husky with interrupted sleep. "Hogwarts. It’s the year 2000, December 22nd, about four in the morning. We’re spending my heat together. I’m Harry, Harry Potter.” 

“Harry,” Severus repeated in a croak. 

The omega ducked his rumpled head against Severus’s collarbone. “Yeah.” 

His voice sounded choked. Blindly, Severus buried his nose into the intoxicating scent at the crook of the young man’s neck. He smelled like sweat and semen and safety, and he was so very, very alive.

"Harry," Severus whispered again, into the boy's ear this time. 

Harry kissed him. 

Harry kissed Severus like a benediction, like there was nothing on earth he would rather be doing. It was a very honest kiss, a kiss that gave without asking for a single thing in return; and it pulled need upward through Severus in a rising tide. 

Every sound seemed magnified in the near total darkness, including the way the breath left Harry's lungs when Severus decided he couldn’t stand it anymore and carefully rolled the boy over, reversing their positions. Severus was the one to give the soothing kisses this time, until Harry's arms tightened around his shoulders and his legs locked around his waist. The kisses turned heated, challenge and temptation both until the older man broke the contact of their lips to lick against Harry's throat. 

Harry gave a strangled laugh and squirmed as if he didn't know whether he wanted to bare his throat or push the alpha away, so Severus stopped teasing. "What would you like?" he asked, pulling back to look intently at what he could make out of Harry's face. 

Harry blinked, then lowered his lashes. "Oh, I don’t need anything fancy," he answered, looking sleep-tousled and delighted. "I'm—I'm a simple sort of person, you know." 

Severus nipped lightly at the boy’s jaw. "I'm beginning to realize what a lie that is." 

"I've never lied to you, Severus," Harry answered with a snicker, which of course was patently untrue. 

But Severus liked the sound of his name on Harry’s lips, he realized. He wanted to hear him gasp it. 

So he sucked kisses from Harry's sweet lips until his slick had leaked onto his thighs and pooled beneath them on the sheets. Then he took Harry slowly and languorously, until he was shivering, keening out his pleasure into the darkness. 

And when they'd both reached the inevitable conclusion, he pulled a quilt over their tangled bodies and wrapped his arms around Harry for the rest of the night. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I was going to write a longer sex scene here, but I ran out of steam. Oh well. We're not done yet ;)


	13. Happiness and Cheer

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi there. Endless thanks for all the comments and kudos on the last chapter! Sorry this has taken a while once again. I'm still struggling to find time to write. 
> 
> Also, for anyone who's reading my other Snarry works, those are still ongoing as well and hopefully will have updates ready soon.
> 
> This one's just smut, ya'll.

The days slipped by in a blur once more. The 22nd. The 23rd. Christmas was coming.

"Tell me a secret," Harry ordered when they were tangled together after a particularly energetic round. He looked sweaty and sleepy and captivatingly rumpled, and his eyes were greener than the greenest winter forest.

Severus shifted, then tightened his embrace. "I like Christmas carols," he replied.

~

Perhaps he should have felt angry and resentful that Potter—Harry, now—had seen him in the vulnerable position of having and waking from a nightmare. Perhaps he ought to feel as if he were losing battles.

But he didn’t. He couldn’t. Because Harry hadn’t acted as if he thought Severus was broken—or at least, not in any way that Harry wasn’t broken himself. 

~

Perhaps the metaphor was inspired by the season...but whenever Severus thought back to the time they’d spent trapped in the tower together thus far, he pictured a string of moments, each glittering like a bright bauble or ringing like a bell.

_Harry, kissing Severus with their naked chests pressed together, his own warm and taut and wet._

“Fine,” Severus growled, breaking the kiss as he reached a decision. He knew it was abrupt, but what did that matter? If surrender was inevitable, he’d prefer it to be now—right now, thank you very much. 

Letting his lips travel, he smeared them down Harry’s jaw, his throat, his collarbone. His left nipple—just tasting at first, then sucking greedily.

As Severus had suspected it would be, Harry’s honey-gold heat milk was pure ambrosia, better than the finest whiskey, the most delicately brewed love potion. Sweet and tart, honey and apples, berries and spices. He took long licks of it, holding it on the back of tongue before swallowing.

For his part, Harry arched each nipple up to Severus’s mouth, fingers clenching in the long, loose strands of his hair. At some point, he'd started babbling. “Oh god, yeah, fuck, Sev'rus, that's so good, you're so good, Severussss, don’t stop—”

Since he was a bastard, Severus did stop. Eventually. After another six minutes or so.

He hadn’t had his fill, but there would be other opportunities, he was sure. 

_Harry, gasping, “I think I like your tongue best when it’s in my arse.”_

It was muffled because his head was buried in his arms where he was bent over the bed, but it sounded to Severus as if he were trying not to laugh.

Pulling back from licking lazily into the boy's opening, Severus stroked up and down his side. “Cheeky minx," he grunted. "I’m going to sod the daylights out of you for that.”

They both knew that it wasn't exactly a threat. Harry arched and twisted to face him, biting his lower lip against a very wide grin. “And—mmh—when will that be, Professor?” he returned, as impudent as ever despite his shortness of breath.

Severus knew that Harry had taken to only calling him _Professor_ when he wanted to irritate him or knock him off-balance. “When I’m ready.” He gave the omega's bottom a swat. “Now be still, _Mr._ Potter.”

The boy was laughing outright at this point. “Men who have their tongues in my arse should call me Harry,” he pointed out, fluttering his lashes.

It was a tease, nothing but soft banter—but abruptly, Severus was fighting the urge to growl low in his throat. Men, Harry had said. 

He couldn’t make Harry promise that Severus would be the only one who’d get to see him, taste him, pleasure him like this. All he could do was straighten up and whisper _Harry_ with hot breath into the boy's ear, just to feel how it made the omega shudder below him.

“Oh,” Harry moaned, letting the older man's weight on his back push him down.

Then Severus slid inside, and he thrust, and he thrust, and he thrust.

_Harry, licking a broad stripe up the scar on Severus’s thigh (broken bottle, thrown; he'd been seven), then leaning over to run the tip of his nose up and down the older man’s aching length, eyes still fixed on his face._

Severus wasn’t so far gone that he couldn’t recognize that this was a question. The breath had punched out of his lungs. “If you—lick—and then—in your mouth—” was all he could manage to answer, although he knew this was profoundly inarticulate. 

At least had the presence of mind to cap it by ordering, "And don't choke yourself."

Harry snorted and nodded—and then he set to work. 

Harry licked Severus's cock like he was hungry for it, twisting his tongue around the precum leaking from the tip before devoting his messy attention to the ring at the base that would expand into the older man's knot. Severus had begun by gripping the bedsheets tightly, but by the time the boy opened his lips and sucked the head into his mouth, his hands had migrated to Harry’s head, fingers twining through the unruly curls, tugging, stroking. 

The omega seemed to like this, beginning to make quiet little slurping and moaning noises and responding to every twitch of Severus’s hips and each of his harsh breaths by giving him more more _more_. He was focused and sensual and entirely too good at this for someone who’d been a virgin less than a week ago. When he managed to fit Severus’s entire length inside his mouth—and yes, he didn’t choke on it—Severus lost the ability to breathe.

A few minutes later, the younger man was beaming at him smugly with a dribble of come running down his face that he hadn't been able to swallow. “Greedy boy,” Severus rumbled as drowsy satisfaction stole its way through his limbs. Harry chuckled low in his throat and climbed up to bury his face in Severus's shoulder, and that was that—at least until it was time for more of _that_ yet again.

~

The thing about sex with Harry was that, when he gave away control, it was a willing, open-hearted gift; so Harry was never really out of control at all.

~

Harry remained insatiable as the days rolled on, and Severus found that he too wanted to do little except pound into the younger man until Harry was red-faced and screaming and coating them both with his thin come. Everything about the boy was addictive, from the heat of his kisses to his generosity and perceptiveness to the way his laughter would catch in his chest to how he didn't seem able to sit still for more than three minutes at a time. 

But it was still just sex. Was sex was sex was sex.

Or so Severus told himself. But he found his ability to believe this diminishing by the day.

He felt light-headed at times, and disoriented, and a bit as if he was cracking open. He might have accused Harry of being greedy, but Severus was starting to realize that he was really the one who would never be able get enough of this.

So he held Harry while he slept, and he didn’t think about the future. They were encased in a snow globe that hadn’t been shaken—not yet. And Harry’s heat was bound to end, and soon—but not yet, not yet.


	14. Repeat the Sounding Joy

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hiya friends! Thank you all so much for the great comments and kudos on the last chapter. Here we go again. <3

It was the morning of Christmas Eve, and all through the castle, not a creature was stirring, not even a kneazle.

More importantly, the other side of Severus’s bed was empty. The scent of the omega who should have been there lingered on the tussled sheets, but Harry himself was nowhere to be found.

Severus groaned and threw his arm over his eyes, remembering the night before. “Would you like to fuck me?” he heard himself asking in memory, an exhale, a croak. 

There had been alcohol involved, but he couldn’t bring himself to blame the firewhiskey he'd sipped before bed. Not when he’d been thinking about broaching the idea for hours beforehand.

~

It had started late in the afternoon. Stretched out in front of the fire in Severus’s sitting room, Harry had broken a rather companionable silence by saying, “Ginny was the one who told the press. About me being an omega, I mean.” 

Severus had closed his book on elemental transfigurations to give Harry his full attention. He tried not to be distracted by the pert swell of the boy’s arse in his sweatpants, which were too long on him and decorated with the emblem of the Chudley Cannons. 

"Is that so?"

Harry turned eyes that danced with firelight up at him. His voice was soft. “She said it just slipped out when a reporter was asking her why we broke up.” 

Severus took a moment to consider that, how keenly Harry must have felt the betrayal by his childhood sweetheart. He leaned closer. “And did you believe her?” 

The younger man released a breath, his shoulders lowering slightly. “Yeah. Gin has a temper, but she’s not vindictive." He shook his head sharply and turned back to the flames. "But she should have been more careful.” 

“She only told the truth," Severus pointed out, deciding to play devil's advocate. "Or would you rather have hidden this part of yourself from the world for the rest of your life?” 

“I...don’t know.” Harry ran a hand through his perpetually disheveled hair (currently even more disheveled than usual, considering how he'd ended up flat on his back rolling it against the mattress while it was still wet after showering that morning). His lifted a brow and offered a lopsided smile. “Are you my therapist now, Severus?” 

Severus snorted and sat back against the sofa cushions again, reopening his book. “Merlin forbid.” He began reading again.

After surreptitiously watching Harry continue to stare broodingly into the fire for another ten minutes, however, Severus felt his patience snap. “Harry," he said lowly.

The younger man looked up again, his face flushed with the heat of the flames. “Yeah?”

Severus held open his arms. “Come here.”

In a marked contrast to the wary hesitation he would have displayed just days prior, Harry obliged him instantly. Climbing into Severus's lap, he buried his nose in the alpha's neck and swung his legs over the arm of the sofa. 

Severus brought his own arms up to circle Harry's shoulders, and they breathed in tandem for a time.

“She said I’d let her down, lying to her about my gender all along,” the younger man finally mumbled. “She said she’d always thought I'd be more masculine when we were together, sweep her off her feet like some type of hero from a storybook or something.”

Oh, for fuck’s sake. If Severus hadn’t already thought Ginevra Weasley was a shallow little imbecile, the fact that she’d said that to his courageous, compassionate Harry would certainly have cemented the idea. 

“There is nothing about this—” Severus lowered a hand to the waistline of Harry’s sweatpants, then below, crooking two fingers against the entrance to his slick opening in a way that was guaranteed to make the omega shudder. “—that makes you any less of a man.” He pushed the fingers inside.

Harry gasped—but stubborn to the last, he quickly lowered his chin and countered, “Lots of people seem to think so."

Nuzzling the omega's throat, Severus added a third finger and began to piston them in and out slowly, caressing the boy’s left buttock with his palm as he did. "And what are they?" he asked in turn.

He'd expected Harry to resist longer, but suddenly the line of the boy's shoulders loosened, and he began pushing back against Severus's hand. Even more encouraging, Severus could feel an erection starting to swell eagerly against his thigh.

"Dunderheads," Harry answered with a sigh.

Severus hummed in approval and rewarded the younger man by quickening his pace. “Just so.”

The conversation had devolved after that into far less articulate activities, but its lingering effect was to begin spinning certain wheels in Severus’s thoughts. Harry _was_ a man, despite the feminization of male omegas in popular media, and there were certain sexual acts that men—most men—were enthusiastic to perform.

And why shouldn't Harry get to experience that, too?

In any case, he'd been able to smell at the time that Harry’s heat was finally on the wane. So perhaps Harry be open to less traditional methods of alpha and omega coupling, Severus speculated. And if not, was there anything that would be lost by asking? (Anything that wouldn't be lost anyway once Harry's heat was over and they were freed from their confinement and Severus's bed was always cold and regular life resumed its slow plod of yesterday to today to tomorrow?)

Salazar, he didn't want to think about that.

And he didn't want to think about how nervous it made him, to rasp out the question to Harry Potter, former student and omega and Boy Who Lived.

Harry had been on his knees at the foot of the bed when Severus had finally decided to bring it up, in the middle of showing the older man exactly what he’d learned in the last few days about the art of cocksucking. And it had been glorious, and the wave of unmitigated pleasure that was cresting through him was likely what had finally loosened Severus's tongue. 

"Do you want to fuck me?"

Hearing the question, the boy froze. "Er..." He cleared his throat, sounding partially strangled. 

"It’s no matter," Severus added quickly, his voice tight. It seemed he was about to be rejected after all.

"It bloody well does matter!" Harry protested just as quickly. He was blinking rapidly, obviously focusing on composing himself. 

Severus swallowed, attempting to school his expression into its familiar sneer.

But his feeling of vulnerability must have shown on his face, because Harry let out a soft and warm huff, and his eyes glittered. The hand that was still wrapped around Severus's erection tightened and gave it a comforting sort of rub. “You’re so sexy," the boy murmured, biting his lower lip. "I’d love to do that. It just took me by surprise, is all.” He cleared his throat again. “I mean, have you ever—?”

It was easy to guess the rest of the question. “No.”

The omega nodded as if he wasn't surprised. His lower lip was dark and shining now from how he kept biting it. “But you want to? With me?” 

Severus closed his eyes. Bottoming wasn't something that alphas did, as a rule—but then again, while Severus enjoyed enforcing rules, he rarely gave a toss for following them himself. There were slurs for alphas who wanted to be penetrated, and even now he could hear his father ranting in a drunken slur about poofs and shirt lifters if he tried...but what did any of that matter, really?

Although he couldn't quite explain why, he wanted to know what it felt like to have Harry inside him. He wanted to know it with an intensity that took his breath away.

He spread his legs wider in wordless assent.

Harry groaned, then leaned forward to place a kiss against the base of Severus’s shaft, which turned into little kitten licks. They moved down onto Severus's scrotum, then tentatively farther back, his breath misting against the older man's sensitive perineum.

“But I have no idea what I’m doing,” the boy interrupted himself in a tone of apology, just when Severus’s stomach was starting to flutter with panted breath. “You're going to have to yell at me if I mess up, if anything hurts at all—”

“Potter.” Severus’s voice sounded far sharper than he’d intended. He swallowed dryly again and tried to control it. “Don’t waste my time.”

The younger man blinked even more rapidly, then offered a rueful smile. “Right.”

For all the awkwardness of the moment, the word was gentle. And gentle was the order of the day, it seemed. With a thoroughness that belied his inexperience, Harry prepared Severus gently with his fingers, using the heat milk from his nipples and his own slick as lubricant. Then they rearranged themselves until he could climb into position above Severus and press into him gently, muttering nonsense all the while. (“God, you’re so hot, you feel so good—I can’t even think about it or I’ll come—“)

Severus, for his part, was hitching his legs around the boy's thighs to pull him closer, tighter, deeper. He felt dazed by the unexpected sensations deep within him, wracked by waves of shivering he couldn’t control. At the apex of each of Harry's thrusts, he thought he might shatter—but he also felt as if stretching around Harry's girth was grounding him, re-centering him in his body thrumming with heart and blood.

And then, as if that weren’t enough, Harry’s gasped litany of praise turned into a confession. “I could smell that you were good, you know,” he murmured in little huffs of breath, smearing a kiss on the inside of one of Severus’s knees and holding the older man's gaze. “All along. Even when I was twelve and I hated you.”

Severus forced his eyes to remain open, though his vision had gone cloudy.

“But then you were acting so shifty all the time, and you obviously hated me back…” The boy's lips quirked, his hands clenching on Severus's lower back as his hips continuing to roll and grind. “You had me a bit at war with myself, you see.”

"What…” Severus breathed out harshly. “…did I smell like?”

The young man pressed closer, pushing as far into Severus as he could. His eyes closed, and his nostrils flared. “Bravery,” he said softly. “And longing.” 

A pause, and Harry pulled back, leaving Severus feeling desperate and empty. “For my mum, yeah?”

Of all the times to finally bring this up… Severus wanted to curse and spit and clench both hands in his hair. Instead, he locked his legs around Harry’s waist to keep him in place. “I wasn’t in love with your mother. Idiot boy.”

“You weren’t?” Harry stiffened and seemed legitimately flustered. “But I thought...I mean, your memories—”

“Friends,” Severus croaked, rolling his chin back to stare up at the ceiling, which he could probably glower at without sending the message that he wanted the current activities to stop. “We were _friends_."

Harry's eyes were wide. "But you were so broken up over her!"

"Of course I was." This time, Severus couldn't help leveling his glare at the little twit who was currently buggering him silly. "She was the best person I ever knew." He tightened his hands into fists, the nails digging deep in his palms. "And it’s my fault she’s dead.”

“Oh, no. Shhh.” Bowing forward again, Harry’s wrapped his strong arms around Severus's back, his lips sucking against a patch of skin near his left pectoral. One of Harry's hands stroked over Severus’s sharp hipbone, and the other tangled in his hair. “No, it wasn’t. You can’t still believe that.”

Severus exhaled loudly through his nose, considering informing Harry that he could fucking well believe whatever he wanted to believe. "You have no idea what you’re talking about," was what came out instead.

Harry’s hips—and the hot shaft that was still buried in Severus—moved in an emphatic burst that made Severus see stars. “Did you kill her? Did you want her to die?”

“Of course not.” Severus’s breath hissed out through his crooked teeth. “I would have given anything for her to live, _anything_ —”

“Then I forgive you,” the boy interrupted with a tone of finality, as if that was all there was to say.

Severus had never expected forgiveness from Lily’s son. He felt a bubble of slightly hysterical laughter trying to well up in his chest. What was he meant to do with that, with Harry’s forgiveness?

He bit the inside of his cheek until he tasted blood, and this was not the time for this conversation. Or maybe it was exactly the time for this conversation, because now that it was over, Harry was picking up his pace again, pumping harder and deeper deeper deeper while biting Severus’s shoulder and sneaking a hand down between them to fist his neglected cock—and Severus could lose himself in the sensations, squeeze his eyes shut tight and let himself start to fall apart—

“I’ve got you,” Harry breathed against his cheek. “I’ve got you.”

Severus managed to hold in his shout as he came, shooting his seed over his own belly and chest, but he couldn’t swallow the hoarse laughter that forced its way from his chest afterwards. 

Watching him with wide eyes and an even wider mouth, Harry’s hips stuttered. Severus felt Harry spasm deep within himself, so he tightened his internal muscles to milk the younger man until he was dry.

Afterwards, with the sweat cooling on their bodies, Harry eased out, then collapsed at his side and looked at Severus with an expression of wonder. “I made you laugh,” he whispered.

Severus knew he was still smiling. He was also aware that there was nothing attractive about his smile, with his awful teeth and all his stern angles looking melted and undignified. He attempted to clamp his lips closed.

“No, don’t hide it!” Harry cried, reaching up to stroke the side of his face. “I like the way you look when you laugh.”

"You're certifiable."

The boy bowed his head against Severus’s collarbone. He was swirling a finger through the triangle of hair in the center of Severus's chest, and Severus could feel the way his Harry's lips were curving in a smile of his own. "Yeah. And?"

Severus wrapped an arm around the younger man’s shoulders to keep him close, wincing slightly at the unfamiliar burn in his arse as he shifted. _And_ indeed.

~

Now, abandoned in his bedroom the following morning, he couldn’t bring himself to regret asking Harry to top, even if it had ended with Severus revealing far more of himself to the omega than he’d ever intended.

But his heart did skip a beat at the thought that Harry’s heat might have ended in the night, meaning that the boy had seen fit to leave him. But no—a quick slash with his wand proved that his magic was still depleted. Assuming Harry was in a similar state, he couldn't have left.

Severus could feel a growl building in his chest. He knew what his body thought: despite the lack of a bond bite, it had come to the conclusion some days ago that Harry was his mate. And his mate had no business disappearing on him like this, even if his heat was ebbing.

Rising stiffly, Severus wrapped a robe around himself and stalked from his bedroom to figure out where the irresistible little sod had gone.


	15. Baby, It's Cold Outside

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for the comments and kudos! Snarry fandom is such a wonderful place.
> 
> So I out-kinked myself with this one. I like it, but please be aware that this chapter involves some pain play starting about halfway through. You can feel absolutely free to skip to the end, though of course everything that happens is in an atmosphere of consent and mutual respect. Write me a comment if you want more details before reading.

To his relief, Severus found Harry in his outer office. 

He was shivering, since no one has bothered to light a fire there for days. Catching Harry in his arms, Severus muttered, "What are you doing out here, you wretched boy?" into his hair. The portraits, including Albus’s, were asleep; the door to the rest of the castle was still sealed.

"Mm," Harry said, as if that was an answer. He melted back against Severus, then shook himself free and picked a jacket up from the visitor's chair next to Severus's desk.

It was the jacket he’d been wearing that fateful morning a week ago when their imprisonment had begun. Twisting to face Severus with the jacket held between them, Harry asked, “Do you remember how I wanted to talk to you? Before the potion spilled?"

Severus’s eyebrows rose. He did, although other things had thoroughly rerouted his attention since then.

“You said it couldn’t wait until after Christmas,” he answered cautiously, reaching up to smooth a stray curl from Harry’s forehead. It was so easy to be tactile with Harry, now.

One side of the younger man’s lips lifted. “Yeah. There were two things, actually. This was the first of them.” He unfolded the jacket to reveal a parcel wrapped in red and green with a sparkling ribbon on top.

“A Christmas gift?” Severus asked, although he normally despised stating the obvious. 

Bouncing on the balls of his feet, Harry's smile only grew. “Yep.” He nudged the parcel into Severus’s hands. “Go on, open it.” 

The gift proved to be a still photograph, obviously Muggle. In the background was a heavily bedecked Christmas tree. In the foreground were himself and Lily. 

They looked to be about ten years old, wearing Christmas crowns while they held a strand of gold tinsel between them. Lily was in an awful green sweater and laughing and facing the camera, while Severus, in his typical rubbish bin clothes, was grinning at her sidelong and looping his end of the tinsel in a lasso over one arm. 

The wooden frame was simple, but its color set off Lily’s brightness. “I found it while I was going through some stuff in the Potter vault,” Harry explained quietly. He was worrying his lower lip as he glanced between the picture and Severus’s face. “I thought you might like it better than anything I bought at a store...but maybe you don’t want to be reminded—”

“No,” Severus interrupted, swallowing against a sudden lump in his throat. The picture was precious, a fragment of the past that he hadn’t even known he’d lost. "I do appreciate... That is, this is a very thoughtful gift. It was…” Severus cleared his throat again. “It was taken the year before Hogwarts. Lily’s parents—your grandparents—had me over for dinner on Christmas Eve. They loved the holidays, just like you. Right after this, we pulled Christmas crackers. Then we wrote letters to Father Christmas and tossed them in the fire.”

It was less painful to talk about this than he might have expected, but it still hurt enough that he needed to pause and close his eyes. 

“Did you write a wish?” he heard Harry ask, and then there was the pressure of a hand resting on his upper arm, something he could lean toward.

“Yes.” 

“What’d you wish for?” 

Severus opened his eyes again. “Roller skates,” he answered dryly. 

Seeing an expression he couldn’t name on Harry’s face, he quickly made an effort to collect himself. “There were two things, you said?” 

“Right.” Harry dropped his hand and shifted on his feet, his smile growing crooked. “The second thing is that I wanted to know if you would like to join me for Christmas dinner. Provided we’re out of here by then, of course.” 

Severus hadn’t known what to expect, but it hadn’t been that. “Just the two of us?”

“Oh, no. It’s at the Burrow with the Weasleys. And Hermione. And Neville and Xenophilius Lovegood will probably stop by. But I'd really like it if you came too.” 

Severus found himself at a loss again. Harry had intended to ask him to join his family holiday gathering before they’d spent his heat together, before they’d been intimate in the slightest? “Why would you do that?” he wondered aloud.

Harry stepped closer and turned his face upward, resting his cheek against Severus’s shoulder. “Because I thought you might be lonely, being by yourself here in the castle on Christmas. And because I like your company, you daft man.” 

Four days ago, Severus would have chewed Harry’s head off for this. Now, he could only open and close his mouth wordlessly. 

“I wouldn’t want to intrude,” he finally managed. He could easily picture himself as the specter at the feast, the dark blight in the midst of warmth and family. 

Predictably, however, Harry was protesting, shaking his head rapidly. “It wouldn’t be an intrusion." Carefully, he reached out and laced his right hand through Severus’s left. “You’d be my guest.”

"Harry," Severus began. He winced slightly, hearing how uncertain he sounded. “I appreciate the offer very much,” he continued once he was sure his voice would be crisp and smooth, “but I’d prefer to have a quiet evening on my own. I’ve been looking forward to it for some time.” 

Harry looked disappointed at this, but not particularly surprised. He withdrew his hand and took a step back. His gaze darted toward the sleeping portraits, but Severus didn't think he was really looking at them. “Right. You haven’t had much of that these hols, I suppose.” 

That was certainly one way to put it. “Thank you again for the picture,” Severus said hoarsely, trying to believe that something important hadn’t just been lost. 

Harry’s smile was back, though it was a lot smaller this time. “You’re welcome.”

And the matter was dropped. They retired back to Severus's quarters, and they made love, but Harry didn't extend the invitation again.

~

It was evening, and they were together in Severus’s private study, encased in a bubble of light and warmth amid a half-circle of silvery dark windows. There was a full moon casting gentle light that turned the frosted grounds of Hogwarts blue and violet; and due to the wandering clouds, snowflakes pattered against the glass in stray gusts.

Severus was on the windowseat with his back to the night, Harry straddling his lap, his torso stretched so that he could put both hands against the glass. He seemed genuinely delighted by the haphazard drift of ice down from the sky. “It’s only barely cold,” he said in awe. “Why isn’t the glass frosted?”

“Warming charms, of course,” Severus answered, lifting a brow. “The headmaster of Hogwarts must always be able to view the grounds.”

“Too bad you can only look at me right now, then," Harry quipped.

Harry’s face in the moonlight was ethereal and absurdly gorgeous. It was a sight, in fact, that made Severus’s mouth go dry. “That will be perfectly fine," he answered wryly.

Smirking slightly, Harry nuzzled closer, then reached back to guide Severus’s waiting member to the entrance to his body. When he got the right angle, he slid down and sheathed it fully, resting his weight on the older man’s lap.

“That’s good. Just like that,” Severus said softly. He’d learned early on how well Harry reacted to his praise, soaking it up like soil in the rain.

Harry moaned and pressed himself closer. 

Harry’s cock brushed against Severus’s abdomen, full and dark and lovely. As he began to thrust, Severus made a loose ring around it with one hand and stroked in time, tight tight tight like Harry liked. At the same time, he leaned up to capture Harry’s lips in a kiss that had the omega letting out a soft cry and melting forward, his arms around Severus’s neck and the crown of his curly head pressing against the window.

Severus's knot began to grow.

At this point, he would normally have eased the knot inside of Harry and then resorted to short, rocking thrusts so that the omega stood no chance of getting hurt.

But that wasn’t what Harry wanted, this time.

Lifting his face from where he’d buried it in Severus’s neck, the omega groaned, “Is it ready?” He wiggled his hips against the swelling knot. “Feels like it’s ready.”

“Not yet.” Severus suckled one of his earlobes, holding Harry's hips so he wouldn't accidentally sink down too far. “You want all of it, don’t you? You want to see if I can penetrate you with my knot fully inflated?”

It was what Harry had asked for, a half hour earlier. "I just like knowing how far I can stretch to hold you," he'd explained.

At the thought of that, something dark and tight in Severus’s abdomen had unrolled with pleasure. 

Harry had misinterpreted his expression. “Never mind,” he'd added quickly. “You think it’s dumb and reckless.”

“I do," Severus had answered carefully. "But that doesn’t mean I won’t try it.”

And now here they were. In response to Severus's question, a shudder went through the boy's frame. "Yeah," he replied. "Everything you can give me."

Closing his eyes and suppressing his own shiver, Severus considered the logistics. In his experience, his knot could reach three-fourths its maximum size before ejaculation. As an omega, Harry’s body ought to be able to accommodate that if necessary, but it wouldn’t be easy. They would both have to work hard.

And that hard work was about to begin. With a surge of blood southward, Severus felt his knot balloon past the point when it could comfortably enter an omega. And Harry must have felt it too, if the sharp exhale and the way he froze were any indication.

"Bear down, Harry,” Severus murmured in encouragement. 

"But it's so big..."

Severus pitched his voice low, for Harry's ears and no farther. “You can do it. You can do this for me.”

"M'trying..."

Harry bounced up and down in short bursts, working the thick bulb into himself, going a bit lower each time. Severus had a sudden, visceral appreciation for what regular flying had done for Harry's thighs.

But his knot had swollen even more while they'd been talking, and he could see the way Harry was sweating, the moonlight transforming it to a silvery sheen on his skin. "Does it hurt?" he wondered quietly.

“Yeah,” Harry answered, with a hitch of breath that was almost a sob. He ducked to bury his face against Severus's neck, then added, “But that’s sort of the point.” 

One hand let go of its clench on Severus’s shoulder to gesture out the window. “I mean—it’s cold out there, but we’re warm. It hurts, but I’m alive.”

Severus found that he understood completely.

After that, the world narrowed to the way Harry’s chest expanded and contracted with his ragged breathing and the wet sounds from their coupling. He rocked Harry through it, massaging his back and cock and nipples and arse, making sure that every breath and kiss they shared made Harry feel cherished, that the younger man was always able to open his eyes and see a winter wonderland with snowflakes drifting down onto glittering hillocks of white.

Severus hoped that someone out there in the snowy grounds could see them, could see him making love to Harry Potter, wrapping the young man in safety and comfort, bringing him to the point of wordlessness and making his entire body shake with desperate pleasure. Let them be jealous of Harry’s beauty; let them see the tenderness that Severus himself hadn’t realized he possessed until now.

When Harry’s ring of muscle finally loosened enough for Severus’s knot to slip all the way inside, the boy gasped, lips parting as he beamed down at Severus in triumph. “I did it!” he crowed, the rigid muscles in his legs and arms finally slackening.

“You did,” Severus murmured, flushed with the effort of staying still. Now that it was buried inside Harry’s tight, wet tunnel, he could feel his knot growing even bigger in preparation for climax. “You were so good for me. Should we finish now?”

Eyes gleaming, Harry leaned forward to nose at Severus’s jawline, lick behind his ear. “Now where would be the fun in that?” he whispered.

“Fuck,” Severus grunted—but Harry was already focusing again, clenching around him, his abdomen straining as he pushed. Severus wouldn’t have thought it was possible, but he felt his knot slowly start to slip out of Harry once more.

When the knot finally popped free, Severus let out a keening sound that he didn’t know he was capable of making, hands grasping wildly for the omega’s hips; and Harry gasped, “This must be torture for you—to have me and let me go.”

It was it was it was.

The wretched boy leaned forward to suck kisses from Severus’s mouth, dancing his hips above Severus's length coyly. “I bet you just want to shove it in again and come in me until I slosh when I walk,” he whispered, practically a purr.

Severus heard himself growling. His arms locked around Harry’s waist. “You’re playing a dangerous game, you little tease.” 

“Mm-hm,” Harry answered—and he did sound a bit breathless, at the very least. “Good thing I have an alpha with such great self-control.”

The words seemed to echo in the silence that followed.

Bracing himself, Severus lifted the younger man and lowered him to the floor, until he was stretched out below Severus like a feast, everything on display—wet nipples, leaking cock, kiss-bitten lips, slender stomach, spread legs, glowing eyes.

And below all that, his gaping hole, dark and slick and completely open. The edges were quivering with each of Harry’s breaths.

“You want to be at my mercy, Harry?” Severus demanded, his voice so gravelly he barely recognized it. If Harry was eager to play this game, Severus could see no reason in the world to hold himself back. “You want to test my self-control?”

Harry gazed up at him through lowered lashes, unashamed and unafraid and perhaps trying to suppress a grin. "I trust you,” he answered simply.

Feeling his heart clench, Severus stroked a hand along Harry’s cheek. “Take hold of something above your head. Yes, like that.”

Still on his back, Harry had maneuvered himself so that he could grip the table legs. When he’d settled again, Severus lifted Harry's legs and placed the boy's ankles on his shoulders.

With a soft chuckle, Harry rubbed the toes of one foot into Severus’s hair. Severus turned and nipped at it, then took himself in hand to give his length a few rapid strokes, enjoying how slick he was from Harry's juices and the way Harry’s eyes darkened as he watched. 

Then he lined himself up with Harry’s entrance and began to push.

Harry had been so thoroughly used at this point that Severus met barely any resistance—at least at first. When the knot began to breach the younger man, however, Harry's breathing sped up, his internal muscles flexing in denial.

"Severus..." Harry began, his voice wobbly.

Severus knew that this position would be harder for the omega, since his pelvis was bent slightly and gravity was working against him. 

“Shhh,” he murmured, reaching up to stroke the side of Harry’s face again. He had pushed his knot about a third of the way in, now, and the sight of Harry’s body nearly splitting to swallow the impossible protuberance was mesmerizing. “You’re doing so well for me. You’re doing so well for your alpha.”

Harry let out a strangled half-cry.

The knot entered him halfway. Two thirds.

Severus reversed course and began to pull it out again.

Harry’s eyes, which had been closed with the strain, flew open again. “What are you doing?” he demanded wildly.

Severus allowed himself a small smirk. “You wanted to test my self-control,” he pointed out.

“Yeah, but—” Harry’s protest died on his lips as his opening stretched over the most bulbous part of the knot once again. He whimpered inarticulately, and then he was past it, the edges of his abused hole finally beginning to slacken—but then Severus reversed course yet again and began to push into him once more.

“Oh god!” Harry cried. “Oh shit, Severus—”

“Yes,” Severus grunted, increasing the tempo of his short thrusts, designed to keep fucking Harry with the thickest part of his knot without relief. “Say it. Say it for me.”

“Severussss,” Harry repeated, practically in Parseltongue. “Ah! Sseverusss--”

As a reward, Severus finally pulled all the way out of his omega—and then he slammed back into him in one surge, knot and all.

And then he did it again, and again.

Harry was openly sobbing at this point, tears streaming out of his beautiful eyes. Still pounding into him, making Harry's body swallow his knot whole, Severus leaned over to press their torsos together and lick at the tears. Was he going too far?

But no, Harry was finally letting go of the table legs to wrap his arms around Severus’s neck, his legs locked by the ankles around Severus’s waist. “So good,” he moaned, sounding broken. “Sev—so good—more, please, harder, don’t stop—”

“Harry,” Severus groaned, losing himself. He buried his face in the crook of Harry’s neck, latched his teeth—

“Bite me,” Harry ordered fiercely, raising his hips in counterpoint to each of the alpha’s thrusts. “Please bite me. I’m yours already, please please please—”

Severus sucked violently, and Harry came, covering them both with his clear omega seed. Slamming into his young lover, Severus was soon to follow. All of the self-control in the world couldn’t have prevented it. He painted Harry’s insides with his spunk, his knot finally swelling past the tipping point. There was no way he would be able to remove it from the younger man now.

Harry collapsed backwards, staring up at him glassy-eyed. “Breathe,” Severus whispered, and Harry sucked in air noisily.

His lips were parted, so Severus licked into them against Harry’s soft, pliant tongue. Then he licked the mess of semen from Harry’s body, everywhere he could reach while they were still joined.

Feeling his knot finally recede, Severus eased out of the omega gingerly. “I need to check if you’re injured,” he murmured. As his arousal faded, he was realizing how spectacularly foolish they had been, considering they couldn't use magic to heal anything if Harry's passage had torn.

To his relief, an examination proved that Harry seemed unhurt, although he’d certainly be sore once the endorphins faded. Leaning down to slip his tongue inside the omega, Severus tasted a mixture of Harry's nectar and his own bitter, salty seed—which was exactly as it should be.

“Babies,” Harry mumbled suddenly, still unfocused and remarkably blase about being licked in his most sensitive spot. “I want babies.”

Severus pulled back, blinking. “Is that so?”

“All the babies," Harry emphasized in a slur, pulling Severus back down onto the floor so that he could mash his nose into the hair at the center of the alpha's chest.

Severus obligingly held the maddening boy close. “You want me to keep you pregnant for a decade?” he asked, caught between the desire to tease Harry and a tight feeling in his chest.

“Yeah. That sounds—” Harry gave a jaw-cracking yawn, then tried again. “That sounds awful, but I want it.”

So did Severus. It was sudden and visceral—Harry swollen with child, giving birth to a beautiful baby with black hair and green eyes— 

“Idiot,” Severus managed, not sure if he was talking to his companion or himself. 

Using his final reserves of strength, he hoisted Harry up and carried him to bed.

~

Drifting awake from a hazy dream, Severus reached for the warmth that ought to be beside him and felt—nothing. Startled, he opened his eyes.

His room was bathed in the soft light of dawn. He could hear birdsong drifting from far away, and he could feel magic—all of his own glorious, potent magic—pulsing in his veins and ready to spring from his fingertips at his command once more.

It was Christmas morning, and the other side of the bed was empty.

So were the rest of his quarters. So was his office.

The door at the bottom of the stairs had been left open.

Harry was gone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Nope, Sev didn't give Harry a bonding bite. I'm sorry! I'll update as soon as I can, I promise. Only three or four chapters left.


	16. All I Want for Christmas

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A quick update, as promised!

_Dear Severus,_

_I’m sorry I’m taking the coward’s way and sneaking out without saying goodbye. But apparently Hogwarts has decided it’s time to let us go…and my heat’s over, so I know you’ll be wanting me out of your hair._

_But I wanted to thank you. Not just for making the best of a bad situation and shagging me rotten. For being what I needed, right when I needed it._

_But you’ve always tried to do that, haven’t you?_

_Happy Christmas._

The note was signed with a simple, _Harry._

~

He visited the kitchen to give the house elves their Christmas gifts, but that only took an hour before the elves solicitously and firmly kicked him out again.

Severus had been worried about being a specter at Harry’s Christmas feast, but now he was a specter here in Hogwarts, the gaunt form of the headmaster roaming the castle’s empty hallways. So he left the school and went for a walk in the freshly fallen snow, which was deeper and even more beautiful than it had been a week ago, when this whole wretched (wonderful) thing had begun.

But it wasn't helping. He wandered the icy landscape among the bare branches of the trees for two hours, then returned empty handed, shivering and chafed from the frigid air. Now, the icy woodland that had seemed so peaceful and serene a week ago only struck him as desolate and cold. Even the return of his magic was little consolation. Warming charms could protect him from the frosty air, but they couldn’t keep the bitter chill of missing Harry from seeping into his bones.

The omega would be with his family and dearest friends now, enjoying Christmas merriment and cheer without Severus darkening the scene—which was exactly as it should be. Harry would be much better off like this.

Although they’d have to see each other once the new term began, which for Severus would be torture. Looking from a distance, unable to hold Harry or bait him with dark attempts at humor or bathe in a radiant smile that was for Severus and Severus alone—

He kicked a snowy hillock, then vented more of his impotent fury by exploding a rock that was peeking up out of the ice. He didn’t know why he was so miserable. He’d known perfectly well all along that Harry’s heat would end, that their time together had an expiration date.

He trudged back to his office drearily, having no idea what to do next. Whiskey, he supposed. Though it was a toss-up whether he’d have the willpower to take it somewhere that didn’t still smell of Harry’s intoxicating scent or just swig it next to the drinks cabinet.

As he was passing through his outer office, however, a flash of light in the corner of the floor behind his desk caught his eye. Closing the distance, Severus knelt to discover a broken potions vial on the carpet, its contents long seeped out.

The experimental potion that had led to their captivity had been in a ceramic pot, so this was something else. Gingerly, Severus picked up the glinting glass shard that had originally caught his attention and brought it to his nose.

Oh.

That explained rather more than it didn’t.

The scent was unmistakable—and yes, now that he replayed the scene in his mind, he did remember hearing glass shattering when Harry had dropped the first potion. This one, Severus believed, had been sitting on top of the cabinet of other vials behind his desk, waiting to be properly shelved. He must have knocked it over when he'd lurched backwards.

Exhaling slowly, he scrubbed a hand through the lank strands of his hair.

“Severus, I’d like to speak with you, please.”

Still lost in thought, it took Severus a few seconds to register the voice. “Albus?” he wondered, looking up.

Above him, Albus’s portrait nodded, the painted figure edging around his desk of bric-a-brac until he could look directly down at the living man. 

“Severus,” the portrait repeated gravely when Severus only gazed at him in silence. "You deserve to be happy.”

Stiff, Severus climbed to his feet. “How can you possibly say that?” he demanded with acid. “You of all people know what I’ve been, what I’ve done—”

“I should have said it much earlier, my boy,” the portrait interrupted. "As far as I am capable of regretting anything now in my current state, I regret that." 

Severus closed his mouth and waited.

Albus looked over Severus's shoulder and seemed to be lost in thought. “For many years, I used you as a tool, the best tool at my disposal,” he said after a time.

“I always understood that, Headmaster.”

“Did you, Severus?” The portrait shook its white head with an air of exaggerated sadness, but its eyes were sharp, and there wasn’t a twinkle in sight. “Did you realize that I spent countless hours manipulating you into what I needed you to be?”

Did Albus think he was a fool? Of course he had.

"I needed you to be bound to me by more than just a promise, Severus. I needed you to be emotionally dependent on finishing our shared task—ensuring Tom Riddle’s complete and final death. Inasmuch, I encouraged you to dwell on your guilt, your shame, your past mistakes and the part you played in your friend’s death."

The portrait paused to sigh wearily. "This was an act of war, my boy, justified because of its benefit for the good of all, but it was a great disservice to you as a man. I’m afraid that I was looking at the forest for so many years, I lost sight of the trees." He spread his painted arms, then closed them again and scratched his nose. "As it were.”

Severus realized that he was trembling uncontrollably. First Harry's forgiveness for Lily's death, now this? It was absurd. “Albus…” he began in a hiss, not having a single fucking clue how he was going to finish.

"No no, Severus, there's no need for that tone." The old man tilted his head and smiled slightly. “Perhaps what I mean to say is that I never in my long life knew anybody with greater inner nobility or strength, and I apologize that circumstances did not allow me to tell you so. I tested your loyalty to the breaking point—and it’s only due to your own fortitude that you did not break.”

Severus suddenly and desperately wanted to cry.

“Perhaps it’s time to accept that you’ve paid your debts, Severus," the portrait finally finished. "All of them. And do please reach for the joy that’s within your grasp.”

~

Severus retreated into his rooms.

Once there, he found himself gravitating, not toward the whiskey cabinet, but to Harry’s gift where it had been left on his dining table.

He picked it up, holding it in both hands carefully.

When Harry had first given him the picture, he’d been focused on Lily, looking so young and blooming with happiness—a little girl who wouldn’t live to see twenty-two, who would sacrifice herself for love of her baby and set in motion the defeat of the most evil wizard of the twentieth century.

Now, however, his eyes traveled to his own face in the image—so familiar, and yet not familiar at all. When had his smile ever curved up at both ends like that? When had his gaze been so wide and excited? He was more somber than Lily, but he also looked to be relatively at ease in his surroundings—not sure if he belonged exactly, but willing to accept whatever was offered.

He'd wished for roller skates.

Severus realized that he was breathing shallowly. Abruptly, he felt the need to fold over and press his forehead to his thighs, lest he faint. 

It had been so long—so very long—since he’d allowed himself to admit what he wanted.

That, when it came down to it, was the real reason he hated Christmas. Because Christmas was about asking and receiving. And that was a loop that Severus had almost always seen from the outside. He'd spent so many years asking without answer—or even worse, getting a thing that looked like an answer but wasn't actually one at all, like how he'd wanted to change the world and had gotten the Death Eaters—that he'd finally stopped asking at all.

He traced his own face with a careful fingertip, then Lily’s.

He was being given a second chance—at life, perhaps at fulfillment and family. Shouldn’t he at least attempt to take it? 

If he was standing outside the gates of paradise, was he such a stubborn arse that he'd fight tooth and claw not to go through?

~

In all his years as a spy, Severus had never felt so out of place as when he made his way up the snowy path to the Burrow at three in the afternoon on Christmas day.

There was music coming from inside.

He straightened his spine, gathered the fortitude that he'd heard so much about that morning, and thought of Harry. 

He knocked.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Lol, I know it's still a cliffie...but it's a bit better, right?
> 
> Thanks for reading, friends. And thanks for all your excellent and helpful feedback <3


	17. All the Bells on Earth Shall Ring

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm so sorry it took me so long to post this. I've just finished a long-distance move, and I thought I could write while all that was going on, but it was just impossible. 
> 
> But you all are so amazing. I really can't express enough thanks to everyone who's stuck with this story and made writing it such a great experience <3 <3 <3

The door was opened by Molly Weasley. Behind her, Severus could see a dozen wet coats hanging on a long row of hooks, ice melting in the shape of footprints on the floor, twinkly lights strung along the cornices of the hall ceiling.

She looked surprised to see him, to say the least. 

“Please,” Severus said with as much composure as he could muster. “I’d like to see Harry.”

The woman's nostrils flared. Comprehension dawning, her expression hardened. “I hope you're here to apologize,” she answered sharply, glaring down her nose at him. “And even if you are, I don’t know if I should let you. An alpha, throwing out an omega after spending a heat together—why, if I’d known it was you, Severus Snape—and poor Harry’s been so distraught all day, though of course he’s been putting on a brave face for us all—”

Severus was beginning to get the uncomfortable feeling that he was fourteen again instead of forty. “Molly!" he finally interrupted, speaking rapidly over her. It couldn't be helped, but it wouldn't do to forget that this was the woman who had killed Bellatrix Lestrange. "I didn’t throw Harry out. He left me without saying goodbye.”

Molly's tirade came to an abrupt halt.

“Please,” Severus repeated, looking up into her lined face, usually kind, but so pinched and severe now in defense of one of her children. He’d never found it easier to say the word.

Frowning, Molly peered into his eyes. He wondered if she'd ever studied Legilimency. Could she see all the way down to his shriveled heart?

“You’ll care for him?” she finally demanded. “See to his happiness?"

Severus straightened his shoulders. “If he allows it. I would like nothing more than the chance.”

Molly looked at him closely again, discerning, judging. The seconds ticked by. The air wafting out from inside the Burrow smelled like cinnamon and fresh bread. 

“All right,” she finally decided. “I’ll take you in.”

Severus let out a soundless breath of relief. 

Stepping over the threshold into the Weasley home was like walking into a wave of warmth and noise. He couldn’t see the house’s occupants from the entrance hallway, but he could certainly hear them: Granger talking heatedly about politics and the Ministry with a male who was murmuring absentminded responses, likely Arthur; two male Weasleys—George and Ronald, at a guess—attempting to sing “Good King Wenceslas” in a round with each other while Fleur Weasley née Delacour encouraged them in laughing French; something exploding with the distinctly chaotic flair of a Weasleys’ Wizard Wheezes product; a toddler beginning to cry.

“Harry has a visitor,” Molly announced as they rounded the corner into what appeared to be the heart of the festivities, leading Severus into the throng.

A wave of silence spread.

There were even more people present in the sitting room than he’d initially guessed, with Andromeda Tonks and her young charge Teddy Lupin crammed next to Charlie Weasley on an old sofa, not to mention Neville Longbottom sitting by Molly’s only daughter under the tree and bouncing the sniffling Victoire Weasley on his legs. And yes, they were all staring at Severus, who was likely just as sorely out of place in his black robes and with the lines carved onto his face by years of sneering as he’d imagined he’d be—and yes, a slack-jawed Ronald stopped singing with a sudden squeak...

But none of that mattered, Severus was realizing. Because Harry was there, sitting between Granger and Bill Weasley with his green eyes fixed on Severus, wide and startled and bright.

"Harry," Severus croaked. They’d only been apart for a few hours, but the sight of him took Severus’s breath away. 

Harry opened his mouth, but it was Ginevra Weasley who broke the silence first. “Fucking hell,” the girl hissed, rising to her feet. “Of course it’s you.” Her face turned white, then red.

Severus had never seen her so furious, even in that terrible year when she and Longbottom had waged a guerilla campaign against him. “Miss Weasley?” he answered hesitantly, completely unsure of his footing in this strange tableaux.

Ginevra, however, seemed to have no such qualms. “I can’t believe this!” she spat out, glaring at him with her hands balling into fists. “Harry just happily spends a heat with you, like it’s nothing, when he’s been in love with you for years and years—”

“Ginny!” Granger gasped, while Molly shrilled, "Ginevra—" 

But the young woman wasn’t so easily quieted. “You may think I’m just a jealous ex, Snape, but I’ll always care about Harry." Her voice was starting to shake. "If you hurt him, I’ll hex your alpha prick right off, don’t think I won’t—”

“Ginny! That’s enough.”

It was Harry who’d spoken, this time. Slowly, he stood, looking not at Ginevra, but at Severus himself.

And then he was moving quickly, saying, “C'mon.” Taking Severus by the hand, he pulled him out of the sitting room and through the front door again into the bright, wintery day.

The fields around the Burrow were deep in snow. Harry seemed to know where he was going as he forged out into the white world, saying, “Come on,” again, more quietly this time. He walked quickly, despite sinking into the snow with each stride.

Severus was happy to follow, anchored by the warm tug of Harry’s hand in his. Finally, they stopped at a small bench set against a line of dark-branched trees, covered in ice that Harry melted with a competent flick of his wand. 

Mutely, Harry turned and gestured for Severus to sit. The older man obeyed, already missing the feel of Harry's hand in his. 

Could what Ginevra had said be true?

Harry kicked at the snow. “Hi, Severus,” he finally said, his hands shoved loosely into his jeans pockets. “Not that I’m not happy to see you—but I thought you wanted to be alone on Christmas. What brings you here?” He was gazing down at Severus with that inscrutable look he’d given the alpha so frequently in the last few months, but he was also worrying his lower lip between his teeth—a lip that was still noticeably red and chapped from their kisses.

“I wanted to speak with you,” Severus managed, hating how formal and stiff it sounded. He hesitated. “And I was under the impression I was still invited.”

“Of course,” Harry answered, quick but firm. His breath made a cloud in the air, chest rising and falling with each inhale. “Of course you’re welcome here. I’m sorry about Ginny. That was right out of line. I didn't want to...” He shook his head sharply and trailed off.

When it became clear that Harry wasn’t going to finish the thought, Severus took a deep breath. Whatever the truth was about Harry’s feelings for him, Severus was the one who had come seeking him, interrupting his time with his family on the holiday. It was Severus's responsibility to begin this conversation.

“I am not a nice man,” he finally said, as it was as good a way to start as any.

Harry blinked at him. “Severus…” he began with a frown.

Severus held up a hand. “Let me finish. Please.” He’d used that word more often in the last half hour than in the entire preceding year, he suspected—but he’d meant each one with utter sincerity.

“All right,” Harry eventually agreed, slowly lowering himself down next to the older man on the bench.

Harry's scent now that he was near was familiar and soothing, although far more subtle now that his heat was over. Severus let it act as a balm to the tight squirming of nerves in his stomach and gathered his courage. “According to most sources," he began again, "I’m an unsociable bastard. Even discounting my history—”

“You’re a hero.” Harry had twisted to face him, his expression steely.

Surprisingly, Severus was the one who lowered his gaze first. “Even discounting my history,” he continued rapidly, looking down at the bench's wooden slats, “I can be vindictive; short-tempered; jealous; obsessive. Willfully blind.” That, perhaps, most of all.

“You, on the other hand—” He swallowed. Why was this so damn difficult? “—are compassionate, brave, and intelligent. You deserve every joy in the world. At the very least, you deserve a much, much better life than I could offer, were I by your side.”

Silence. When Severus finally mustered the courage to look up, Harry was blinking rapidly, wetness in the corners of his eyes. He leaned closer, saying in a low voice, “You ninny—you never see how noble you are, and funny, and so fucking brave—”

“But I would be your alpha, if you’d have me,” Severus rushed to finish before Harry derailed his point. “It would be an honor that I’d strive every day of my life to deserve.”

Harry’s lips parted in wonder.

Severus could hear his heart hammering in his ears. “But as I’ve said,” he backpedaled quickly, “I’m well aware that I’m no one’s idea of an ideal mate—“

He was stopped by the press of Harry’s mouth against his, hot and sweet and insistent, such a striking contrast to the cold.

“Of course I’ll bond with you, you ridiculous git,” the younger man said some time later, when they’d finally pulled back enough for unimportant things like breathing and talking. His brow furrowed. “Didn’t I ask to? Why didn’t you bite me last night?”

With his curls in disarray from being raked by Severus's fingers, his glasses askew on the bridge of his nose, and the faint shadow of stubble on his cheeks and chin, Harry looked soft and fierce all at once. Cupping the omega's rough cheeks in his palms, Severus took a few heartbeats to try to believe this was real. “I didn’t think you were in your right mind,” he eventually explained, girding himself for what he would say next. “And...my mother was an omega. She begged my father to bite her during their first heat together and was miserable for the rest of her life.”

Drawing attention to the sordid facts of his parentage had never done him any favors, but Harry deserved the whole truth. “I always swore that I wouldn't bite anyone until we'd talked about it when we were both clear-headed.”

“Oh.” Harry coughed and ducked his forehead against Severus’s shoulder. Was that an embarrassed blush rising into his ears? “That makes a lot of sense. I never meant to pressure you."

Severus snorted. They'd both misunderstood each other, he suspected. “Did you leave because you thought I’d rejected you?” he couldn't help but wonder. 

Harry looked up again. “You asked for your space,” he pointed out.

“I was an idiot.”

Harry tilted his head back against the bench to grin up at the sky. “Seems that way." His eyelids lowered to half-mast, and the look he shot Severus was equal parts Gryffindor and Slytherin. "But maybe I'll let you make it up to me."

Suddenly, Severus felt as if he were on much more familiar footing. "Cheeky brat," he murmured, already knowing what Harry's answer would be.

Harry stretched, and his crooked smile up at the pale sunlight grew even wider. "I've told you, Severus. I do try."

They were quiet together for a time after that, listening to the sounds of the wind through the branches of the trees and the occasional sharp trills of birdsong. Severus held out an arm, and Harry accepted the embrace easily, nuzzling close and slipping his own arm around Severus's lower back. There was more to say, so much more—and he didn't think he could ever really put the depth of his feelings for Harry into words, though for Harry's sake he would have to try—but, against all odds and past experiences, Severus had the deep conviction that there would be time enough for all of it later.

There would be time for Severus to partake in the jolly Weasley festivities, feeling extremely awkward but bolstered by Harry's happiness at having him there. There would be time for eggnog and spiced cider, for Christmas goose and pudding, for squeezing Harry's hand beneath the table; and there would be time for whispered confessions under the mistletoe ( _"Do you know how long I've wanted you, Severus?" A pause, a shuddering breath. "Almost half my life. That's how long."_ )

And there would be time too for being pulled up by the younger man to the small bedroom Harry had planned to share with Charles (who had shot the two of them a slightly green look and quickly volunteered to take the couch), then slapping up some silencing wards and surrendering to the urgency to reclaim what they'd both thought they'd lost with greedy kisses, buttons undone blindly, growing hardnesses pulled out and pressed together and denims being shimmied down Harry’s slender hips. There would be time for Harry to fall backwards until he was spread and open on the sheets and Severus could hoist the omega's legs up and push his way into slick, sublime heat once more. ( _"You're sure you're not too sore?" "No, it's good, so full, so good—"_ )

There would be time for Severus to hold Harry flush against him as he worked himself in and out of the boy's body, kissing Harry through it—his neck, cheeks, shoulders, eyelids, lips. There would be time for him to feel Harry's magic humming and thrumming below his skin, pulses of it, beams of it; and it would spill surge radiate up into Severus from where they were so deeply joined. 

There would be time for Severus to give a hoarse cry that he couldn't possibly silence and finish much too soon, but keep thrusting until his penis was soft because Harry was still sobbing and hard, holding onto the alpha possessively, saying his name in breathless gasps. When his cock slipped so easily out of the boy (he wouldn't knot again until Harry's next heat), there would be time for Severus to bend down over the bed and take Harry’s length into his mouth, engulfing it and swallowing... And that would be all the time it took to push Harry over the edge, arching and babbling the best sort of nonsense and sending hot pulses down Severus’s throat.

But for right now, it was absolutely perfect just to sit here in the snowy field with Harry in his arms, warm and comfortable, right and sure. There was time for this, too; and Severus had never felt more as if time was on his side.

“Hey, what’s this?” Harry murmured suddenly. His hand had settled over Severus's pocket—the one with the shard of glass in it that Severus had found on his office floor.

Carefully, Severus withdrew the fragment and held it up to the light. “This…” Unable to help himself, he paused for the dramatic reveal. “…is a broken piece from a vial that held perfectly brewed Felix Felicis. When you spilled Genevieve’s potion, I fell against it and shattered it as well without realizing I’d done so, splashing it on my robes. I can only assume that it worked in counterpoint to the other potion, heightening the inescapability of our containment.” He cleared his throat and met Harry's eyes with a lifted brow. "Serendipitous as that was."

Harry gaped at Severus for a heartbeat, then stifled a grin and pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose. “Are you saying you got lucky, Severus?” he wondered solemnly, only the dancing of his eyes giving him away.

Severus felt the urge to laugh—and then he heard himself doing it, deep in his chest. “Happy Christmas, Harry," he told his mate.

And it was a very happy Christmas indeed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know that's not really how liquid luck works... Call it artistic liberties.
> 
> Hope that was a satisfying resolution! Now just the epilogue left.


	18. Since We've No Place to Go, Let it Snow, Let it Snow, Let it Snow

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've never written an epilogue before, so please forgive this if it's awkward in places. :P

_Ten years later..._

It was Christmas again. Geese were a-laying, maids were a-milking, lords were a-leaping, and Weasley products across the land were exploding in a myriad of festive ways, each more ingenious than the last.

And in a small but very well-decorated cottage in the Scottish highlands, Severus Snape said "Bugger!" and pulled another smoking cake pan out of the oven.

He was one of the greatest living potioneers. Why in Merlin's fucking name was he so utterly incapable of making a sodding Christmas cake?

He was in the middle of stripping off his oven mitts and slapping them down on the kitchen counter when warm arms wound their way around his waist from behind. "Another one burnt?" Harry asked against his shoulder.

Growling, Severus twisted to face him. "If you say one word…"

Harry had removed his winter coat and scarf and mittens when he'd come inside, but he still had snowflakes caught on his eyelashes. "If you cut off the sides, we might still be able to eat it," he offered with a grin.

Severus felt his nostrils flare.

"What?" Harry asked innocently. He stood on his toes to press a kiss to Severus's left cheek, then his right one. "That was a dozen words, darling, not one."

At the sight of the smirk that was dancing on the edge of his husband's lips, Severus finally gave in and let his shoulders lower. "Imp," he muttered against Harry's hair, allowing the tension to leech out of him. "How are the children?" He could hear their shrieks of laughter, though they'd disappeared into the snowy hills out the window.

Harry's wry huff tickled Severus's neck. "Having a snowball fight royale. Seb and Ana have joined forces, but Elodie's built a trench and is holding her own so far. She's got terrifying aim."

It was Severus's turn to smirk. "Ten Galleons says she'll be Chaser for Slytherin by her third year."

Harry pulled back, his nose wrinkling. "I’m not taking that bet. You must think I'm an idiot."

Severus allowed his expression to speak for him.

"Oh, shove off, you old git," Harry said contentedly, edging around Severus to rifle through the tin of homemade Christmas biscuits on the counter that the Granger-Weasleys had sent over the day before.

Severus let him go, taking the opportunity to slip away from the kitchen in favor of the sitting room, which was still strewn with the remains of that morning's excess of gift-giving. Shredded paper, cracked crackers, limp ribbons, stockings dumped on the ground. The toys (and clothes, and books) that all of these discarded trappings had held were nowhere to be seen, however, so Christmas, he supposed, had been a roaring success.

It was his eleventh Christmas with Harry, which meant that it had been a decade since Severus had gathered his courage and gone to the Burrow to admit his feelings. They'd gotten married a year after that, a small ceremony at the school on Christmas Eve with only the Hogwarts staff and Harry's family and friends in attendance (which had actually amounted to quite a few people, but Severus had really only been looking at Harry, so the Pope could have been there for all he cared).

A year after that, their first daughter had been a newborn in nappies, and Molly Weasley's Christmas present to them had been to take her for the day and let them both sleep. Now, Elodie was a young lady of nine, already studying the Hogwarts' first year curriculum and compiling suggestions for changes to bring up with the teachers. She’d already told her fathers that she wanted to be Minister of Magic when she grew up. She was serious and observant by nature, and certainly as ambitious as any Slytherin, although far kinder than most who were sorted into that house.

Their only son, Sebastian, had been a grinning six-month-old two years later for his first Christmas. Now, he was rarely seen without his microscope or a book in his hands, thus already showing pronounced leanings at age seven toward Ravenclaw. But he had an almost Hufflepuffian sense of loyalty to his family, and he’d inherited a sly streak of humor from one or both of his parents. Severus was willing to lay down Galleons that he would present as an omega when he hit puberty.

At age four, Liliana, their youngest, was already obviously a Gryffindor. She was impetuous, brave, and even more of a stickler about right and wrong than her namesake had been. On one particular family outing to Diagon, she'd challenged a group of boys twice her size who were tormenting a kneazle. She was also the only one of their children to have inherited Harry’s hot temper (Severus, naturally, disavowed having contributed anything in that regard), and Severus suspected that she could fly better than either of her elder siblings already. She grew more and more like his husband every day.

Mindful of the fact that Harry always wanted to leave the tree up until New Year's, Severus floated the ornaments that had fallen in the rush of unwrapping back up to their branches. A few pixies who'd been nesting in the bark flurried out and shrilled at him, but soon settled back down when he conjured a cloud of mist to moisten the fir’s drying needles. One could never be too careful about fire hazards when there were energetic adolescents in residence, after all.

The breadth and fierceness of the love he felt for his children was not something Severus could ever put into words. He'd always known that Harry would make a wonderful father, but he'd had complex doubts regarding his own abilities, considering his parents and history. But when his first child had been born, he’d discovered that it was impossible for him to treat her with anything other than love and pride. Perhaps it came from being an alpha and knowing that this small little person was his to protect; perhaps it was just a potential that he'd had inside himself all along. 

Whatever the reason, Severus was grateful. And he was grateful for many other things that had happened in the last decade. For one, he was grateful that the public indignation at Harry Potter being a secret omega had eventually died down, though it had been fanned for a while by news of his bonding with Severus Snape. But eventually, when they didn't murder each other or engage in acts of public indecency, the two of them were allowed to slip from the limelight.

And changes had been made on a policy level in the intervening decade, thanks in no small part to Hermione Granger's sheer bullheadedness. Employers in wizarding Britain were now prohibited from terminating an employee based on secondary gender—which meant that the Auror Corps would have been forced to give Harry back his old job, had he chosen that path.

But Harry had decided he liked teaching DADA, so at Hogwarts he had remained. Ten years' worth of students had passed through and improved considerably under his patient instruction. Recently, he'd even accepted the position of Deputy Headmaster under Minerva McGonagall.

Severus had been surprisingly content to leave the school in the hands of Gryffindors again. He'd retired from the position of Headmaster two years ago in order to start his own owl order potions business. All in all, the transition had worked out very well. His business was thriving, the hours were better, and he no longer had to deal with the Board of Governors. And the flexible work schedule allowed him to spend more time with his children.

It wasn't the traditional way for an alpha and an omega to divide up the work of raising a family, but Severus had never really given a sod for tradition anyway. 

The only real way he'd acted conventionally was in the fact that he'd waited to bite Harry until their wedding night. And even then, he'd only done it after Harry had glared at him and bitten him first.

It wasn't that he hadn't wanted to. Severus had wanted to sink his teeth into the younger man with utter desperation, at that point. But he'd also wanted to give Harry every chance in the world to change his mind.

"It's always been you, Severus. It's only ever _going_ to be you," Harry had informed him afterwards, still sounding a bit stroppy about it.

Now, Severus looked up from tidying the sitting room to see his husband framed in the kitchen doorway, leaning a shoulder against the doorjamb. "Come here," Harry called.

So Severus obeyed.

Harry circled his arms around Severus's neck this time and pressed closer until they were chest to chest, heartbeat to heartbeat. "You smell like Christmas morning," he murmured, sweeping his nose up and down the older man's neck.

"It _is_ Christmas morning," Severus pointed out, lowering his own nose to the light scar of the bonding bite over Harry's scent gland.

But in truth, he knew what Harry meant, because Harry smelled like that, too.

Most of all, Severus was grateful for his mate. Loving Harry, Severus had long ago realized, was like catching Dragon Pox or falling off the Astronomy Tower: once started, it was almost impossible to stop.

That didn’t mean it wasn’t bloody exhausting work, at times. Harry was still far more rash and impetuous than Severus thought wise, on top of being prickly in his own right; and Severus could still be impatient and harsh with those who didn’t measure up to his rigorous standards, not to mention the difficulty of overcoming a lifetime's fear of vulnerability.

And aside from all that, their contentious past would spring its ugly head up on occasion—like two nights ago, when Harry had woken up feeling angry at Severus because he’d threatened to poison Neville Longbottom’s toad in third year.

Severus had apologized, and he would continue to apologize for the portions of his past behavior that had been unnecessarily petty and cruel. It helped that Harry understood that his spite had been motivated by misery. And it helped that Harry was far more forgiving than Severus could even now bring himself to believe that he deserved.

But Harry believed it; and that was enough to be going on with, it seemed. When Harry called, Severus would answer. When Harry challenged, he would rise to the occasion.

In more ways than the obvious, of course.

When Harry let out a breathless gasp, Severus realized that he'd been petting his husband absentmindedly while lost in his reverie. This had left the territory of a caress and become more of an outright grope, it seemed, all while he was nosing at Harry's scent gland over and over.

Harry had tilted his head back to give Severus better access, but he wasn't melting into the embrace. Instead, Severus could feel that Harry was still thrumming with tension.

The answer to this small mystery, it turned out, was right under his nose. Harry's scent was wild and deep, and the realization of what that meant surged through Severus like a tidal wave.

“Another, Harry?” he croaked. Harry wasn't pregnant—yet—but his scent told Severus that he'd skipped taking his birth control potion that morning. In the entire course of their lives together, Harry had never missed taking one of his potions unless it was on purpose.

Clearing his throat, Severus managed to cajole his voice into the proper octave despite his racing heart. “Aren’t we getting little enough sleep as it is?”

Harry took a half-step back to look up at Severus intently. “You know Ana’s been asking for a baby brother or sister for a year.”

Severus found himself nodding slightly.

“And Merlin knows we have the money.”

He nodded again. They didn’t lack for funds.

“And I just…” Harry took a deep breath, and Severus realized belatedly how nervous the other man was. “Please?” he asked quietly instead of finishing his thought.

Continuing to peer down at his husband, Severus held Harry loosely, gently. He wondered for a brief and dizzying instant if this could possibly be real, if this was his actual life. How could he have guessed at this, when he'd found Harry shivering in a dark hallway twenty years ago? In his wildest hopes, he would never have imagined being granted this future.

Severus dipped his chin so he could speak directly into Harry’s ear. “The little ones are going to want to play outside for at least another half hour. Would you like to make ourselves scarce and...celebrate the season?"

Harry groaned aloud this time and bent his face against Severus’s chest, which Severus knew was his way of thanking him when he was too overcome for words.

"I knew I'd get you to appreciate Christmas eventually," Harry finally answered with a chuckle that sounded suspiciously wet. He swiped at his eyes, and Severus realized that Harry was crying and laughing at the same time.

Holding Harry carefully, Severus swept his gaze over the sitting room one more time. It was messy and chaotic and lived in and loved, and he could still hear his children's shouts of joy outside, where fresh snowflakes were beginning to drift down from the sky.

The best summary that he could think of was this:

For a long time, Christmas had only reminded Severus of what he had lost. 

Now, it made him think of what he’d found. 

Feeling the corners of his own lips tug upward, he picked up his mate and carried him to bed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Welp, that's done. Merry 15th of May, everyone.
> 
> I can't possibly express my gratitude to everyone who's been reading along. Your comments and critique were highly motivating. Thank you!
> 
> If you're curious about which carols/Christmas songs the chapter titles were from, here's a full list:
> 
> Chapter 1: Silent Night  
> Chapter 2: Walking in a Winter Wonderland  
> Chapter 3: Good King Wenceslas  
> Chapter 4: It’s the Most Wonderful Time of the Year  
> Chapter 5: Deck the Halls  
> Chapter 6: The Heat Miser Song (The Year Without a Santa Claus)  
> Chapter 7: The Chipmunk Song (Christmas Don’t Be Late)  
> Chapter 8: We Three Kings  
> Chapter 9: Holly Jolly Christmas  
> Chapter 10: You’re a Mean One, Mr. Grinch  
> Chapter 11: The Christmas Song  
> Chapter 12: God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen  
> Chapter 13: Christmas Time is Here (A Charlie Brown Christmas)  
> Chapter 14: Joy to the World  
> Chapter 15: Baby, It’s Cold Outside  
> Chapter 16: All I Want for Christmas is You  
> Chapter 17: I Saw Three Ships  
> Chapter 18: Let It Snow! Let It Snow! Let It Snow!
> 
> Drop me a line if you've got thoughts you want to share about the story. Stay safe, all! <3


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